This coming week sees the re-release of James Cameron’s “Avatar” in cinemas, thirteen years after it first premiered and went on to become the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide with more than $2.8 billion.
Cameron then went off to prepare sequels, four in fact, with the first of those finally arriving in December. Thus, in an effort to reacquaint audiences with the original 2009 film comes this theatrical re-release.
Talking with The New York Times this week, he revealed he had been able to re-watch the first film in its fully remastered state a few weeks ago with his kids:
“They got to see it in 3-D, at a good light level and projection levels, for the first time. And they were kind of like, ‘Oh. All right. Now I get it.’ Which, hopefully, will be the general audience’s reaction. Young film fans never had the opportunity to see it in a movie theater. Even though they think they may have seen the film, they really haven’t seen it. And I was pleasantly surprised, not only at how well it holds up but how gorgeous it is in its remastered state.”
He says he doesn’t nitpick about the age of the digital effects, saying there’s “certainly nothing cringeworthy” in the film and the main improvements he can see is in facial-performance work. He adds the thinks the film is “still competitive with everything that’s out there these days”. He is also happy about the resurgence of the theater experience:
“People are craving that. We’re still down about 20% from pre-pandemic levels, but it’s slowly building back. Partly it’s been because of a dearth of top titles that people would want to see in a theater. But ‘Avatar’ is the poster child for that. This is the type of film that you have to see in a theater.”
Asked if he’s concerned too much time has passed between the original and the sequel and audiences will have lost interest in the franchise, he says he’s someone who is used to sequels years later:
“I think I could have made a sequel two years later and have it bomb because people didn’t relate to the characters or the direction of the film. My personal experience goes like this: I made a sequel called ‘Aliens,’ seven years after the first movie. It was very well received. I made a sequel called ‘Terminator 2,’ seven years after the first movie. It did an order of magnitude of more, in revenue, than the first film.
I was a little concerned that I had stretched the tether too far, in our fast-paced, modern world, with “Avatar 2” coming in 12 years later. Right until we dropped the teaser trailer, and we got 148 million views in 24 hours. There’s that scarce seen but wondered at principle, which is, Wow, we haven’t seen that in a long time, but I remember how cool it was back then. Does that play in our favor? I don’t know. I guess we’re going to find out.”
Sadly no question was included about the 4K “The Abyss” or “True Lies” discs that many have been clamouring for. The Digital Bits’ Bill Hunt reports that a new HD transfer of “True Lies” has popped up on Hulu the other day. It’s not the 4K remaster we’re hoping for, but is said to be an improvement on the DVD version.
The re-release of “Avatar” hits cinemas on September 23rd ahead of the sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water” arriving on December 16th.
