{"id":197657,"date":"2025-12-18T03:43:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/197657\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T03:43:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:43:11","slug":"fire-and-ash-and-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/197657\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire And Ash\u2019 And AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAt an early LA screening of James Cameron<\/a>\u2019s Avatar<\/a>: Fire and Ash, starring Sam Worthington<\/a> as lead character Jake Sully, loud cheers erupted from the audience before the film had even started. The reason for the premature exuberance? During a pre-movie featurette, the director explained his opposition to the replacement of actors using AI. With this, the third in the Avatar series, Cameron made a decision to pull back the curtain on exactly how these films are made \u2014 in particular, the artistry of the motion capture process. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn the past, Cameron had aimed to retain some mystery, thinking that showing how it\u2019s done would \u201cdispel the magic a little bit.\u201d But now, he says, \u201cWe realized that people were starting to conflate our process with AI.\u201d Cameron wanted viewers to see that the human actor-director experience was very much intact behind the scenes \u2013 no AI required. <\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough Disney<\/a> (purveyor of the Avatar films), has made a recent deal with Open AI<\/a>, Cameron himself underlines that he has used no AI and says he is determined that the technology be handled with ethical guardrails across the industry.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other main driver of this choice to reveal exactly how Avatar magic happens, was Cameron\u2019s clear respect for the work of Worthington, with whom he has worked on Avatar for some 12 years now. As Cameron says, \u201cI realized that you guys weren\u2019t getting the proper credit for the hard work and the great work that you were doing\u2026 And people are thinking it\u2019s a voice part, which couldn\u2019t be farther from the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: The All-Time Longest Films: A Photo Gallery of The Top 50<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tHere, on the eve of Avatar: Fire and Ash<\/a>\u2019s premiere<\/a>, in conversation with Deadline, Cameron and Worthington discuss their longtime collaboration and what lies ahead for Avatar. Plus, how they handle the pressure of following up the preceding two films in the series, Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water<\/a> \u2014 two of the box office\u2019s highest-grossing<\/a> movies of all time \u2014 in an era in which more and more people eschew the theater experience for their living room couch.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t James Cameron, Sam Worthington on the set of \u2018Avatar: The Way of Water\u2019 in 2022. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWalt Disney<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: So this interview is for a feature called The Partnership, focused on two people with a long or especially intense working relationship\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tJAMES CAMERON: Let\u2019s just get this out of the way up front. We can\u2019t stand each other. So this is all going to be a bit awkward and tense.<\/p>\n

\n\tSAM WORTHINGTON: Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Evidently. So, what do each of you what you remember about your first meeting?<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: I had just broken my foot that day, is my memory of it.<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: Yeah, you fell off a gym mat.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: Yeah, I fell a good, I don\u2019t know, inch and-a-half. I was on crutches, I was in a boot, but I\u2019m trying to video Sam and Zoe together. You guys did a read, a cold read, right? And I\u2019m hopping around, trying to keep the camera stable. I don\u2019t know what you were thinking.<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: I think I was hopping with you.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: I think you didn\u2019t even see me. You were just checking out Zoe.<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: It was in Jim\u2019s old office. And I always remember, you went down a corridor, and it had the posters of every single one of his movies. So you\u2019re kind of intimidated by the time you get to the end. But Jim, as I said, was hopping over in a boot and it relaxed me straight away.<\/p>\n

The liquid hit the head camera. The problem was then, the head camera kind of set on fire. And me being me, I ran around the room, forgetting that it was connected to my head.<\/p>\n

Sam Worthington<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Sam, I was really interested about what it\u2019s been like for you to spend this much time working directly with Jim. Is there a memory where you felt, \u201cOK, this is a peak actor-director experience?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: It\u2019s a curly question. I\u2019ve known Jim 20 years, and then if you add up all the time, we\u2019re talking that we\u2019ve worked together, I\u2019m estimating it\u2019s like seven or eight years, solid. So that\u2019s a lot of time just to pick one moment.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: I feel it was when you puked on the head rig camera.<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: Yeah. Jim, the truth is in the details. So all you\u2019re looking for in the way we shoot it is, how to get to the truth. And I think the scene involved me having to drink something that was described as disgusting. So I said to Jim, \u201cWell, you got to just give me something disgusting.\u201d I think he mixed a concoction of fish oil?<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: Yeah, no, we went and got some Vietnamese fish sauce. Like, \u201cAll right, this is going to set him back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: So when I drunk it, it did the exact thing you wanted. It was disgusting. But it was so disgusting it came flying out. Of course, we\u2019ve got head cams on, so all the liquid hit the head camera. The problem was then, the head camera kind of set on fire. And me being me, I ran around the room, forgetting that it was connected to my head. When all I had to do was take the helmet off.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: It was definitely a peak moment.<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a classy moment.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: It\u2019s not a classy moment.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: That\u2019s not really what I\u2019d imagined, but that works.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJames Cameron and Zoe Salda\u00f1a on he set of \u2018Avatar: Fire and Ash\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMark Fellman \/ \u00a9 20th Century Studios \/ courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: That\u2019s the process. The process is always problem-solving. And it\u2019s often something so out of the box it leads down to these kind of moments. Where it\u2019s like, \u201cWow, that\u2019s so crazy, but it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: Sam brings a lot of physicality to the work. I mean, he\u2019s obviously a consummate actor \u2014 the emotion, the vulnerability. I think that a lot of what Sam brings to the role of Jake is the fact that you see past his armor. He\u2019s a tough guy, he\u2019s very stoic, and all that. But you see the pain on the inside, and that nuance of that, I think, is what really makes Jake compelling. But he\u2019s also very physically adept with the weapons work, and the flying, and all that.<\/p>\n

\n\tI remember you created the stance for the riding the Leonopteryx, because we\u2019d figured out how to ride an Ikran, which we also called a banshee, on the first film. And you ride, you kind of straddle it, and you\u2019ve got a foot on a stirrup on each side. And you kind of fly it kind of like it\u2019s a board sport and you\u2019ve got to lean uphill. Well, Sam\u2019s a surfer, and you came up with the stance for the Leonopteryx\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: Yeah, you couldn\u2019t straddle it, so I said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t we try popping up on it, like I would on my board?\u201d And then that gave us something that was dynamic. I think that was what was cool about it. It\u2019s difficult to do, but it suddenly made him different from the other riders as well. So it helped the story, as well as just made it possible.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tfrom left: Zoe Salda\u00f1a, Sam Worthington and James Cameron on the \u2018Avatar: Fire and Ash\u2019 set<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Studios<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: Yeah. We spent a lot of time on the physical stuff, so we had to figure out, \u201cOK, how\u2019s he holding on? Oh, twist your arm through the antenna. You\u2019ve got the weapon in the other hand,\u201d and then he\u2019s doing all this kind of dynamic stuff. I remember, your glutes and your quads were dead the next day. He came in like an 80-year-old guy the next day.<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: Yeah. And this is the thing, you can\u2019t just fake it because Jim will say, \u201cNo, where your foot is is where the Ikran breathes,\u201d or, \u201cyour hand placement, that it would get gnawed off, the Ikran might take it.\u201d So you really have to be detailed, and it was in position, exactly right.<\/p>\n

We realized that people were starting to conflate our process with AI, and that\u2019s entirely my fault, because I didn\u2019t want the public to see, before they saw the movie, people in marker suits and head rigs. I thought it would dispel the magic a little bit.<\/p>\n

James Cameron<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: I watched the making-of documentary, Fire and Water: Making the Avatar Films, and when I saw Fire and Ash on the lot, in LA, we saw a little featurette beforehand, which was like a condensed version of the documentary. I\u2019m really interested in how you\u2019ve pulled back the curtain on how this is done, and the decision to do that. Because obviously, Jim, I understand there\u2019s the worry that people are going to assume that there\u2019s AI involved, when there isn\u2019t\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: They did [assume that] I think on Avatar 2. On The Way of Water, I think that assumption was kind of rampant at the time. And so I thought, \u2018All right, this is doing a huge disservice to how hard the cast are working.\u2019 Because the original assumption was, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s a voice part.\u2019 And I still see in print media, all the time, \u201cSigourney voices Kiri,\u201d because they can\u2019t imagine that she\u2019s actually physically performing a 15-year-old at the age of 71, or 72 when she was doing it. And it\u2019s like, no, she didn\u2019t do a voice part. She was on the movie for 18 months, performing every scene, including all the underwater work, all the work at the surface, riding the creatures, all that stuff. It\u2019s a complete physical performance. It\u2019s not just a voice performance, right?<\/p>\n

\n\tBut then it got worse, because then we realized that people were starting to conflate our process with AI, and that\u2019s entirely my fault, because I didn\u2019t want the public to see, before they saw the movie, people in marker suits and head rigs. I thought it would dispel the magic a little bit. And then I realized that you guys weren\u2019t getting the proper credit for the hard work and the great work that you were doing. I mean, we\u2019ve got Academy Award-nominated, Academy Award-winning actors. We\u2019ve got Sam at the peak of his career so far, [they\u2019re] doing some of the best work in their lives, and not getting credit for it. And people thinking it\u2019s a voice part, which couldn\u2019t be farther from the truth. So we decided to show how it\u2019s done, and celebrate that process.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t even feel like you\u2019re doing a movie on this scale. I\u2019ve always said to people, \u2018It\u2019s like a big indie, an independent film.\u2019 That\u2019s how it feels.<\/p>\n

Sam Worthington<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: What has that meant to you, Sam? To have Jim show audiences why you deserve this credit and have them understand what you\u2019ve been doing all this time?<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: It\u2019s interesting. I still think it\u2019s going to take a lot more for that needle to move, for actors and directors and producers to understand the mechanics of it. I think the audience, they still just get swept up in the magic, and that\u2019s the important thing for me. But in the industry, it\u2019s just about education and learning. And I think Jim\u2019s so far ahead of everybody else that the race hasn\u2019t even begun for some people, and maybe this allows them to kind of catch up and utilize the tool that we love to use. Or at least, when it comes to our work, it\u2019s not necessarily, I find for myself, about recognition. But it\u2019s kind of interesting to see their eyes light up when they see the behind the scenes, and you see the potential of what we\u2019re doing and how we do it.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Avatar:<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSam Worthington as Jake Sully and Jamie Flatters as Neteyam in \u2018Avatar: The Way of Water\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWalt Disney Studios Motion Pictures \/ Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: I think there\u2019s a hook for people to really get this: to think of it as makeup. It\u2019s digital makeup. So nobody questions an actor\u2019s performance, even though you don\u2019t really see their face when they\u2019re completely painted, or covered with latex, or whatever. And even when they have scleral covers over their eyes. It\u2019s like you literally will see nothing maybe but an actor\u2019s teeth, maybe even then, they\u2019ve got fake teeth. And nobody questions that. But then the pushback on this is, \u201cOh, we\u2019re not really seeing the actor\u2019s face.\u201d Except, you are. We do a laser scan of the actor, and then we push and pull the features a little bit, we make their eyes a little bit bigger, but it\u2019s basically their face. Probably much more so.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not talking about artificial super intelligence, right? That\u2019s a whole separate problem. We\u2019ll probably all be dead in a hundred years. But anyway, let\u2019s enjoy the movies in the meantime. But generative AI is a very powerful tool. We just need to tame it, and we need to use it ethically.<\/p>\n

James Cameron<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Jim, you\u2019ve spoken quite a bit about wanting to protect that director-actor experience, and not have AI cross that line. But there is a way that VFX and AI can work together to make films like this more affordable. What do you think about that?<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: Yeah, my instinct is that you\u2019re absolutely correct, that generative AI\u2014 because that\u2019s what we\u2019re talking about, we\u2019re not talking about artificial super intelligence, right? That\u2019s a whole separate problem. We\u2019ll probably all be dead in a hundred years. But anyway, let\u2019s enjoy the movies in the meantime. But generative AI is a very powerful tool. We just need to tame it, and we need to use it ethically. So, I\u2019m not an expert in AI. Like I said, I haven\u2019t worked with it so far. We haven\u2019t used it on the Avatar films, and that\u2019s pretty much all I\u2019ve been doing for the last few years. But I\u2019m very curious about it, and I want to see, it seems to me there are certain specific tasks within the VFX pipeline that are so mind-numbingly boring and repetitious, that those could be done by a gen model of some kind. And even if I have to help develop some of that stuff, because the big developers, the Googles and Metas and everybody, they\u2019re focused on public and business use, right? So, a lot of text-prompt models for text, and text-to-video models, and they\u2019re not focusing on the kind of tools that we need in the entertainment industry. We\u2019re just too small for them, ultimately, is what it boils down to. They think of having a constituency of eight billion people, you know what I mean? We\u2019re just too small a market.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo I think we\u2019re going to have to generate these tools ourselves, I\u2019m very keen to figure out if we can bring the costs down using generative AI tools. Once again, within very specific guardrails that don\u2019t intrude on the artist, we don\u2019t intrude on the writer, we don\u2019t intrude on the actor, most importantly. And I\u2019ll be very vocal, in both camps, in a funny way. It sounds a bit dualistic, or almost confusing, but I want to make sure that we\u2019re not replacing actors, and that we\u2019re not bringing up a next generation of directors that think they can cut out the acting part of the process.<\/p>\n

\n\tI would tell any young director coming in, because they get very excited about the tools. Because I mean, I\u2019ll use an extreme case. I\u2019m a young wannabe filmmaker, living in my mom\u2019s basement, and I can make a science fiction film. And I just make up the people, right? And all of a sudden I\u2019m on the way to being a big-shot Hollywood film director, except you skipped the most important part, which is learning how to bring the characters to life through the acting process. I would tell any young filmmaker, first thing you should do, after you\u2019ve figured out how Maya and Houdini and all the other stuff works, take an acting class. Put your ass on the line. Even if you\u2019re terrible, it doesn\u2019t matter, you\u2019ll know what it feels like to breathe life into a character.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be very vocal\u2026 I want to make sure that we\u2019re not replacing actors, and that we\u2019re not bringing up a next generation of directors that think they can cut out the acting part of the process.<\/p>\n

James Cameron<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Obviously you\u2019ve smashed it at the box office multiple times, and just got a Golden Globe nomination for Box Office and Cinematic Excellence, even before Fire and Ash has premiered.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: We haven\u2019t made a dime yet. It\u2019s hysterical. They\u2019re just assuming that that\u2019s what-<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: I mean, no pressure.<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: And we broke another record, the film with the lowest box office, getting nominated for the best box office. We broke another one.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Obviously, there is that high expectation there. But box office is changing, and we know the way that people are consuming cinema is changing. So on the one hand, I want to say to you, Sam, how does it feel? These kinds of films, these big budget films that need to make a lot of money at the box office, in the model that we have right now, I\u2019m sure it\u2019s going to change. You\u2019re at the zenith of what can be done, before that shift comes, in terms of being a part of this huge budget, high-tech project that doesn\u2019t use AI. So is there some sort of poignancy in making this latest film?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s what box office is, that connective tissue between a film and an audience. And I\u2019ve had an experience on two movies that have done that on a global scale. I can\u2019t let it affect what my job is.<\/p>\n

Sam Worthington<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: Look, I can try to come up with a clever answer. I don\u2019t look at it that way. I\u2019m a jobbing actor. That\u2019s how I\u2019ve always looked at it. I service the story to the director. If the movie connects, that\u2019s completely out of my hands. I think that\u2019s what box office is, that connective tissue between a film and an audience. And I\u2019ve had an experience on two movies that have done that on a global scale. I can\u2019t let it affect what my job is.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: It\u2019s not actable, right?<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: Yeah. It doesn\u2019t even compute with me, sometimes. Jim, I think, is right. He\u2019s going to try and maybe figure out a way that this utilizes as a tool, and can create a faster process for these films. But that\u2019s not going to affect what I do.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: No. And you can\u2019t even keep that in mind. I mean, when I was working on Titanic<\/a>, which didn\u2019t even use a lot of these CG tools, and I\u2019m looking out across 2000 extras, I\u2019m feeling the pressure of a big-budget movie. When we\u2019re doing our work on an Avatar film, we\u2019re in a small, empty sound stage. We cull the volume, we do very rudimentary sets. It doesn\u2019t look glitzy, it doesn\u2019t look glamorous, there\u2019s not thousands of actors. It feels very intimate and contained.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Avatar:<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tStephen Lang as Quaritch in \u2018Avatar: Fire and Ash\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Studios<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: It doesn\u2019t even feel like you\u2019re doing a movie on this scale. I\u2019ve always said to people, it\u2019s like a big indie, an independent film. That\u2019s how it feels. It\u2019s a bunch of people that we\u2019ve known even pre-Avatar 1. You\u2019ve worked with a lot of the people on your other films. And I think it\u2019s surprising when actors get into that space, or even directors getting in that space, of how quiet and calm and intimate the whole process is. This idea, yes, we have two massive movies in this saga, but the process itself is small. It\u2019s about detail. It\u2019s intimate. Yeah, it\u2019s weird.<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: The critical part of the creative process, the kind of crucible where that which affects the audience, which is the emotion. Where that\u2019s created is actually quite small scale. It doesn\u2019t feel like a big production number at all. Now, where the money goes is into the VFX pipeline, for the next two or three years after that. That\u2019s where we\u2019re spending the money, and it\u2019s all about creating photo reality. So if you\u2019re doing a film like Moana, or name any Pixar movie, you don\u2019t need photo- reality. It\u2019s stylized, right? But our curve of difficulty goes up on a long curve. As we approach photo-reality, that\u2019s where the cost is in the render pipeline, and in the creation of all the models that\u2026 We call them the assets, everything that you see in the film, every leaf on every tree. And so, we don\u2019t think of it while we\u2019re doing it. And maybe that\u2019s, we put ourselves in a little cotton cocoon of creativity, but it works. It feels very natural and organic.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve done a movie where we talked about the sequel as we were doing the movie. And it was like, \u2018You\u2019re putting the cart before the horse.\u2019<\/p>\n

Sam Worthington<\/p>\n

\n\twe always knew that Fire and Ash was the end of one story cycle, one story arc. And I think it\u2019s important to tell an audience, \u201cOkay, you\u2019re not going to go off a cliff. Frodo\u2019s not going to get in the boat and row away halfway to fricking Mordor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Jim, you\u2019ve said that Fire and Ash is the conclusion of a particular arc. I know you\u2019re holding off on the next two Avatar films to see how this one does, but if you do decide to do films four and five, what might be in store for Jake?<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: Oh, it\u2019s all written out. I mean, you got to think of it as almost adapting novels that already exist. In my mind, that was the process. They were screenplays, but I wrote it in a very novelistic form. And we always knew that Fire and Ash was the end of one story cycle, one story arc. And I think it\u2019s important to tell an audience, \u201cOkay, you\u2019re not going to go off a cliff. Frodo\u2019s not going to get in the boat and row away halfway to fricking Mordor.\u201d You know what I mean? It\u2019s like, \u201cNo, this story lands. It ends,\u201d right?<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, if we do elect to start the next saga arc, that plays out across four and five, we know what that is. It\u2019s hard for me to think about that right now. I always use the metaphor that if a woman is in labor, at the moment she\u2019s crowning, you don\u2019t ask her about her next children.<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGON: You\u2019ve got to understand, Jim, when he spoke to me about it, it was told to me like a storyteller. Like a whole novel storyteller. He didn\u2019t say, \u201cThis is movie one, movie two, movie three, movie four.\u201d He just told me this story like an old campfire [tale]. He\u2019s writing this thing. It\u2019s interesting for me when people say, \u201cWhen\u2019s the next sequels?\u201d Jim doesn\u2019t work that way. It\u2019s a bigger picture that\u2019s going on here. It\u2019s not like the Lord of the Rings films. It\u2019s like Tolkien. He\u2019s writing it, like that. And that\u2019s interesting, from my point of view.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Oona<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t20th Century Studios<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: I think sequel triggers certain reflexes in an audience where, because most sequels that are ever made, they have an unexpected hit. Then they scramble around, and they try to write some story based on-<\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: I\u2019ve done a movie where we talked about the sequel as we were doing the movie. And it was like, you\u2019re putting the cart before the horse. It\u2019s like, \u201cGet this one right, and then you might get the opportunity to pursue more stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ground is shifting under our feet right now in the entertainment business with respect to cinema, what it means. The younger demos are shifting their habit patterns. We rely on them, of course, because they\u2019ve got the energy to get up out of their house.<\/p>\n

James Cameron<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: That\u2019s kind of where we are. Look, you said it yourself, Antonia, that the market is shifting, the ground is shifting under our feet right now in the entertainment business with respect to cinema, what it means. The younger demos are shifting their habit patterns. We rely on them, of course, because they\u2019ve got the energy to get up out of their house, and go and get some friends, and pay for the parking and actually show up. You know what I mean? But they also grew up with streaming, coming of age in the age of streaming. Habit patterns are shifting. We\u2019re running about 30 to 35% below where we were pre-COVID right now, and it seems to have plateaued. It\u2019s not descending, but it\u2019s not rebounding, right? That\u2019s my analysis. Seems to be true almost everywhere.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd I say 35%, because people are saying 25%, but they\u2019re forgetting that ticket prices went up. So when you look at absolute admissions, it\u2019s actually more like we\u2019re down about a third right now. And that could be the entire margin of a film like Avatar. So let\u2019s let the dust clear on this one, maybe we make some money, maybe we don\u2019t. But we\u2019ll look at the business model, and we\u2019ll see how we can tinker with that business model, maybe by bringing costs down with some new technology. That would be my focus. Everybody says, \u201cWhat\u2019s the new technology that you used in this film?\u201d It\u2019s like, no, we\u2019re at 100%, guys. Anything that we can imagine, we can do. It\u2019s just a question of how much it costs and how long it takes.\u201d And it\u2019s really the length, because 90% of the cost of VFX is labor, so that which takes twice as long costs twice as much. It\u2019s pretty simple.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Avatar:<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJames Cameron with Stephen Lang on the set of \u2018Avatar: Fire and Ash\u2019 <\/p>\n

\n\tWORTHINGTON: It\u2019s also going to be, \u201cHow can we do it?\u201d Because sometimes you write things and you tell me, \u201cI don\u2019t know how to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCAMERON: Yeah, that\u2019s good. That\u2019s healthy. I always try to challenge myself to do stuff. If I\u2019m not scared, then we\u2019re not doing it right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At an early LA screening of James Cameron\u2019s Avatar: Fire and Ash, starring Sam Worthington as lead character…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[32159,32160,33623,9618,93,61,60,32161,270,81912,4313,3033,43986],"class_list":["post-197657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-avatar","tag-avatar-fire-and-ash","tag-avatar-the-way-of-water","tag-disney","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-james-cameron","tag-movies","tag-novid","tag-qa","tag-sam-worthington","tag-titanic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}