Part 2: James Cameron on ‘Avatar 4’ and ‘5,’ Movie Biz Fears, 3D, Netflix, and Aliens

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In part two, Matt and director James Cameron talk about how much ‘Avatar’ really costs to produce, whether he has plans for a fourth and fifth movie, his relationship with Disney and Bob Iger, what COVID and streaming did to the industry, who should buy Warner Bros. (and why it’s definitely not Netflix), why 3D never took off, the Sphere, aliens, his director hang-out sessions, and much more. For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thetown@spotify.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: James Cameron Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It is still Monday, November of 24th, and I am here with Part 2 of Jim Cameron.
0:05.4	We're taping this at his Manhattan Beach studio in his personal screening room where Craig
0:09.7	and I watched Avatar Fire and Ash. Today, we were talking about the business stuff.
0:14.9	What he's going to do with Avatar 4 and 5, whether he'll walk away if this one doesn't do well.
0:19.8	The budgets for his films,
0:21.4	how Fox and now Disney got the movie in the first place,
0:24.3	who should buy Warner Brothers and why it shouldn't be Netflix?
0:27.6	What do you think of the sphere in Vegas,
0:29.4	his director friends, a lot?
0:31.7	Plus the return of the lightning round.
0:33.8	Today is Jim Cameron Part 2.
0:36.1	From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town.
0:43.6	But you've always had this innate confidence.
0:46.0	I remember back in 2009, I did a roundtable for Hollard Reporter.
0:49.7	It was an amazing group.
0:50.6	It was you.
0:51.6	It was Catherine Bigelow, Lee Daniels, Quentin Tarantino, Jason
0:56.3	Reitman, Peter Jackson. And it was the morning after the London premiere. And you had just screened
1:04.5	the movie publicly and the reviews had just come out. They were pretty ecstatic. They were
1:08.8	over the moon positive. Yeah. And we were all
1:11.6	shocked. We're like, oh my God, this is going to be a thing. And I said to you, I remember saying this to you like, these reviews are amazing. And you're like, yeah, they are. Like you, you were pretty sure they were going to be good. This is not quite accurate. I remember my wife, Susie and I being in the, in our suite where, wherever it was in London,
1:30.1	at the Bristol or whatever, and, and literally reading reviews out loud to each other and just
	...

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