'Makes my stomach turn': James Cameron 'cut out' 10 minutes of 'Avatar: The Way of Water' due to extreme gun violence
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: James Cameron’s ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ continues to be a force to be reckoned with at the global box office and has already earned more than $881 million in just 12 days. The movie, which serves as a sequel to the 2009 original movie, sees the Sully family leading a happy life in the magical world of Pandora. However, the danger has returned and the Sky people are searching for Jake for betraying them. The second film continued that legacy of the first film and features a lot of action sequences that are really extremely well-shot and choreographed. However, there were some sequences in the movie that was really too much for Cameron and had to be “cut off” from the final version of the movie.
The second film in Cameron’s BIG BLUE saga features thrilling action sequences and sees the Na’vi tribe fighting the Sky people as they look to destroy the planet once again. However, stakes are a lot higher this time around and feature an entirely new clan in the form of ‘Metkayina’. When things get intense for the clan and the Sully family, they get together to fight the enemy in the most brutal way possible. Although Cameron has included a lot of amazing action scenes in ‘The Way of Water’, he decided to cut “10 minutes” from the movie featuring gun violence because it made his stomach sick.
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While speaking in an interview with Esquire Middle East, the 68-year-old filmmaker opened up about the movie and its various aspects. During the conversation, the acclaimed filmmaker revealed that the final version of ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ was supposed to be “10 minutes longer”. However, the director decided to cut those 10 minutes that featured a lot of gun violence and he is not interested in fetishizing guns amid the rising cases of gun violence in the US.
“I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action. I wanted to get rid of some of the ugliness, to find a balance between light and dark. You have to have conflict, of course. Violence and action are the same things, depending on how you look at them. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I’m known as an action filmmaker,” Cameron said.
In the interview, the ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’ helmer said that he doesn’t want to make films that he made in the past that featured a lot of scenes with gruesome gun sequences because they make his "stomach turn". The biggest reason for Cameron to take a step back is how gun violence has been increasing in the US and becoming a reason for the most number of deaths in the nation. According to gunviolence.org (via ABC News), more than 6,000 children have been killed and injured in the United States by gunfire in 2022. Meanwhile, a report by Forbes revealed in November 2022, revealed that a total of 611 mass shootings were recorded until November, making it the second-worst year for gun violence in the eight years since the Gun Violence Archive began recording data.
The report also indicated that as of November 25, a total of 39,935 people died from gun-related events in the US this year, including 18,221 who died by homicide, murder, or unintentional shooting. On the other hand, more than 21,714 died by suicide.
As far as ‘The Way of Water’ is concerned, the movie has already made over $881 million in just 12 days and will touch the $1 billion mark before the New Year.
‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is currently playing in theatres.