So as someone whose own beloved popcult obsessions have always been scorned by the normals, aka “mundanes”, I kinda hate to be That Guy, and yet: Via Paul Constant, the JoBlo website highlights a statement of artistic vision from James “Dances with Space Smurfs” Cameron:
“Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the “Avatar” business. Period. That’s it. I’m making “Avatar 2,” “Avatar 3,” maybe “Avatar 4,” and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts. And that all sounds I suppose a little bit restricted, but the point is I think within the “Avatar” landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it. And doing it in an entertaining way.
And anything I can’t say in that area, I want to say through documentaries, which I’m continuing. I’ve done five documentaries in the last 10 years, and I’ll hopefully do a lot more…”
Well, since Visionary Cameron’s much-spoken-of $100 million 3D technology investment has paid off so magnificently for Producer Cameron, maybe he can afford to pay an actual scriptwriter for the next two or seven or thirty-five installments of The GodSpaceSmurfs, the Seven SpaceSmurfs, CGI Love & Virtual Death, and of course Class-Struggle Space Smurfs Versus The Iceberg. Although I fear that neither Frank Frazetta‘s estate nor James Gurney are ever gonna get the credit they deserve for Cameron’s Vision, but then, Hollywood wouldn’t exist without plagiarism creative reinterpretation, would it?
Also, it’s worth reading the whole NYTimes Media Decoder interview, which is mostly about selling technology and buying eyeballs in China.