James Cameron's Script For Avatar 4 Had A Studio Exec Yelling Expletives, But In A Good Way
Who says you can't keep improving as you age? Director James Cameron has won Oscars, topped the worldwide box office multiple times, and created some of the world's most popular films. You'd think he has this whole movie-making thing down pat and that there's little that would keep a producer from saying 'yes' to his film proposals. The man created "Titanic" and the "Terminator" series, after all; isn't it hard to improve on what feels like perfection?
But Cameron — like everyone except for the T-800s among us — is only human, and thus as fallible as the rest of us. He's even got some failed projects under his belt. Thus, his scripts still have to go in for notes and scrutiny just like any other studio newbie. But unlike his earlier projects, his latest scripts for the "Avatar" franchise have gotten very short notes, including one that apparently just contained swear words.
His Avatar scripts got fewer notes as they went along
During a December 2022 interview with Collider, Cameron revealed that as he turned in each "Avatar" script for what has been conceived as a five-film franchise, the revision notes he received from the studio would become more and more sparing.
"I can't tell you the details, but all I can say is that when I turned in the script for 2, the studio gave me three pages of notes. And when I turned in the script for 3, they gave me a page of notes, so I was getting better. When I turned in the script for 4, the studio executive, creative executive over the films wrote me an email that said, 'Holy f***.' And I said, 'Well, where are the notes?' And she said, 'Those are the notes.' Because it kind of goes nuts in a good way, right?"
It's rare that a director ever avoids having to deal with notes on a production, and that's quite a tribute to Cameron's storytelling. It's also a promising statement about the franchise's future quality. It appears — at least with critics — that Cameron might have struck the correct emotional cord; Twitter critics are already raving after seeing "Avatar 2: The Way of Water." The general public will get to see if it scares up any expletives from them when it hits theatres worldwide on December 16.