'Avatar: Fire and Ash': James Cameron defends expensive fantasy films — 'If I could make them more expensive, I would'

James Cameron's Avatar franchise continues with the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash (now in theatres), which begins as the Sully family grieves after the death of Neteyam. But more conflict is on the horizon in Pandora, as Jake (Sam Worthington) is preparing for battle.

Spider's (Jack Champion) presence causes a rift between the Sullys, with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) pushing for the family to separate from Spider. But as they move to send Spider off with the Wind Traders, they're attacked by the ash people, led by Varang (Oona Chaplin).

'We see hatred and intolerance on the rise'

While the previous Avatar films worked to establish an emotional connection between the audience and characters like Neytiri, Cameron challenges that in Fire and Ash, specifically as it relates to the cruel hatred Neytiri harbours for humans.

"We want to change them and give them new challenges, and maybe even in the case of Neytiri, challenge the audience to still love her as much as they do," Cameron told Yahoo Canada in Toronto. "She's so dynamic, she's so powerful, she's so relatable emotionally. ... Let's put that to a test. Let's see how far the audience will go walking in her shoes when she does become so prejudiced and so full of hate."

"This is a challenge we all face worldwide. We see hatred and intolerance on the rise almost everywhere. It's the worst I've seen it in my lifetime. And so I thought, let's go for this. Let's take some risks here. And I think we do take a lot of creative risks with this film. And it's tough when you're doing a big franchise where a lot of money is being spent, and it's commercial filmmaking, and you've got to appeal to everybody. But I always feel like the biggest risk you take is when you don't take risks. ... The early part of the film is about creating a sense of want on the part of the audience. What do I want to see happen here? Now I'm invested. Now I'm engaged. Now I care about these people, and I care about the outcome. It's not just about, are they going to survive the battle? Who's going to get killed? I think it has to be more complex than that."

'The atmosphere of conflict' is a comfort for Quaritch

For Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who's been the antagonist in previous Avatar films, and who we found out in the previous movie is Spider's father, we see this interesting connection and comfort he has with the ash people, the Mangkwan clan.

"Quaritch has had a lot of discomfort on this planet, both as a human and accepting the kind of Na'vi nature that is now part of him. It's not something that comes easily to him," Stephen Lang said. "But when he walks into the atmosphere of the ash clan, ... it's almost as if he can breathe a sigh of relief, because what is it he's sort of inhaling? It's the atmosphere of conflict. It's the sulphurous quality of war. And this is a milieu that Quaritch exists very, very comfortably in."

"And then who comes out of the yurt but this incredibly fetching in a really, really, really kind of sneaky way, leader, and the connection between them is immediate."

But Lang was also "delighted" to see how Quaritch has evolved throughout the Avatar films, with Cameron also allowing the character to "devolve" as well.

"I love the contradictions within the character," Lang said. "In that sense, Quaritch resembles the rest of us humans. We're not completely consistent with how we feel and how we behave, neither is he."

"He resists his own better impulses often, and there's a fundamental Quaritch-ness to him, which has to do, I think, with callousness and brutality that has been engineered into him from his experiences throughout his career. ... The life he has chosen is not an easy life. So it's taken a toll on him. And so for him to see glimmers of ... empathy and integrating with other people, or other creatures, other Na'vi, is something. It happens almost despite himself, at times."

James Cameron is 'very proud' of Oona Chaplin's Varang

Cameron has stressed throughout his work on Avatar that he continues to strive to capture each actor's performance in a way that's as real and detailed as possible, with every small motion and emotion in their performance being captured in these characters. That feels particularly evident in Oona Chaplin's portrayal of Varang.

"It's a very detailed performance. I'm very proud of what she created. She created a complete character, and you can see, structurally, the way it's written and conceived, that the Mangkwan are a bit of a cult, and it's a cult of power that she's created," Cameron said. "She leads her people with a sense of their own empowerment, almost a kind of manifest destiny that we are stronger than everybody else. We've been through the fire. We've made the fire our power over others. So basically, it follows that pattern that people that are bullied and traumatized become the bullies and the traumatizers."

"[Oona's] not like that at all. ... She's the most beautifully centred, wonderful, warm person you could ever meet. But she's an actor, and she's a classically trained actor. ... I think she kind of let herself off the leash to go to the dark place, to the place of the id and the ego and power. And the result is this amazing performance. And there's also a physicality to the performance and the way that she moves. And it's very measured, it's very studied. She did a lot of movement work before we started capture, and we worked together for months on her performance. And then, of course, she got to volley with Stephen Lang, who's a wonderful actor. He would challenge her, he'd push her buttons, and she'd push his buttons. And so there was a lot going on between the actors that comes through in the power dynamic."

Lang also highlighted how Cameron effectively works with actors, fostering an environment that allows these performances to shine through.

"The level of support, encouragement and freedom that Jim gives is kind of unprecedented," Lang said. "I've worked with some wonderful directors over the years, and hope to work with many in years to come, but Jim is very special."

"Our process of performance capture, ... there's no time limit on our day. We're not fighting the light. We're not worrying about the amount of film that we have. We are there solely to get to ... the truth of the scene, to explore it and massage it from as many angles as we possibly can. To explore all the possibilities, sometimes to go down kind of blind alleys with it, because you learn from everything. And he's right there, encouraging it, urging you on."

James Cameron on investing in people

But the reality is that films like Avatar: Fire and Ash are expensive and require significant resources, but they also employ thousands of people who are particularly skilled at their craft, especially those behind the camera. But as the trend of fewer people attending films at movie theatres becomes apparent, the future of studios willing to invest in expensive movies, like the Avatar films, comes into question, which is a concern for Cameron.

"Avatar movies are expensive. If I could make them more expensive, I would, because where does that money go? It doesn't get piled up out in the desert and set on fire like Burning Man, it goes to people. People that are trying to pay their mortgages and put their kids through school, and all of that stuff," Cameron stressed. "Over 3,000 people work on an Avatar film. If people don't go to the movie theatres, we can't keep doing it. It's pretty much that simple. So then the question is, alright, where are we going to see this kind of imaginative filmmaking? Are they going to do it for streaming at those cinematic levels they promised a lot earlier on, five years ago, and there were big budgets to do kind of cinema-equivalent quality? But those budgets have all collapsed to half or a third of what they were. So now, are we just going to give up and not have that kind of stuff anymore? I don't know the answer."

"We're going to have to see how this plays out. If people show up for this film, that's a good sign. We saw people showing up around the world for Zootopia, so that's a good sign. But I do think people are getting a lot more selective about when they go to the movie theatre. They want a blue-chip IP. They want something that they know is going to work. Everybody whines about sequels and remakes, except that people are only going to see sequels and remakes, because they want an assurance of what they're committing their two or three hours for. And it's more than that, because you've got to get a babysitter, you've got to drive downtown, you've got to pay for the parking. It's like a whole ritual. ... So how does a new filmmaker coming up make their mark in that field? I'll get a gig. I'm not worried. But I'm talking about who I was 40 years ago when I was making The Terminator. I wouldn't be able to get a foothold. I don't know how this is all going to play out, but I do think that if we collectively continue to honour the theatrical experience that it won't fade away."