EXCLUSIVE: Three-time Oscar winner James Cameron remains leery on a Netflix-Warner Bros marriage, particularly in its impact on the theatrical business and the window. However, Cameron plans to stand in the way of any steamroller making a path toward the big screen.
Deadline Awards Editor Antonia Blyth caught up with the Avatar: Fire and Ash filmmaker, who shared his feelings on the pending merger, now that Warner has accepted Netflix’s bid (yes, nothing is done yet, as Paramount has launched a hostile takeover over the 102-year-old studio).
“Look, it’s no secret that Netflix, they’ve kind of, in a funny way, they’ve had to make an accommodation with a few filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro and so on to keep a foot in theatrical, but I think it’s no secret that they want to replace theatrical,” Cameron told Deadline today.
20th Century Studios
“OK, I mean, maybe that happens, I don’t know, maybe I’m a dinosaur,” he continued, “I happen to think that there’s something sacred about the movie-going experience and just the ease and broad access of streaming is not the complete answer. Maybe the universe adjusts around those two principles, but you can’t just steamroll theatrical out of existence and I’m going to stay opposed to that.”
On Monday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos walked back his comments of recent months, and exclaimed that he’s pro-theatrical, particularly for those greenlit Warner Bros titles that are being developed and made for multiplexes. He’ll even honor the downstream window. However, sources say that Sarandos is a champion of a 17-day exclusive theatrical window, which is far apart from the 45-day window which exhibition craves. For many, 17-days theatrical to Netflix is a shotgun to the moviegoing business.
Cameron said, “Now, maybe Netflix modifies its game once it has the responsibility for the survival of theatrical as well. If they prevail in this, they’ll become a major and we’re down to half the number of majors that existed when I came into the business. This is going to sort itself out, but I’m pretty four-square on the side of let’s keep that theatrical experience alive. Clearly, I make movies for that, primarily.”
“They play well through the waterfall because a good story is a good story. You put it on the smallest screen you want, it’s still a good story. You look at it through a fricking pinhole, it’s still a good story, right?” said the director whose last movie, 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water became the third highest grossing movie worldwide at $2.3 billion and cleared $531M in profit after all ancillaries. Again, you don’t get to those numbers, Netflix, on a 17-day theatrical window. Duh.
Then bringing back to home, meaning Avatar: Fire and Ash, which runs 3 hours and 15 minutes long, the longest of any Avatar movie, Cameron added, “But the way it’s meant to be enjoyed is in a theater in 3D, in an unbroken stream of consciousness, three hours long, because that’s when the emotion will wash over you and through you in a way that it never will on a smaller screen in an interrupted flow.”
“The second you’ve got a remote and you can pause it, you just lost half of the impact,” Cameron continued, “Boom! Mic drop. I’ve never said it that concisely.”
Avatar: Fire And Ash opens next Friday and is expected to clear $100M+ at the domestic box office in its opening weekend.