Hollywood director James Cameron has revealed he cut ten minutes of gun action from the new Avatar sequel, saying “what’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach.”
In an interview with Esquire Middle East, James Cameron also spoke about gun culture in his adopted country of New Zealand.
““I’m happy to be living in New Zealand where they just banned all assault rifles two weeks after that horrific mosque shooting a couple of years ago,” he told the magazine.
Cameron explained why he cut the scenes from Avatar: The Way of Water.
“I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action,” he said. “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 thing, depending on how you look at it. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I’m known as an action filmmaker.”
Cameron expressed some regret about the portrayal of guns in his Terminator movies.
“I look back on some films that I’ve made, and I don’t know if I would want to make that film now,” he said. “I don’t know if I would want to fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of Terminator movies 30-plus years ago, in our current world. What’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach.”
Avatar: The Way of Water still contains plenty of gunplay in its more than three-hour running time.
The sequel has been having a tough time at the box office, especially in China, where the movie has been underperforming with audiences.
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