James admits he 'mourns' projects shelved for 'Avatar'

The Way of Water' makes waves across the world, director James Cameron spares a thought for the many projects that he had to abandon for it.

According to a report by US-based entertainment portal, Deadline, the 'Titanic' director was questioned in an interview with the Empire magazine whether he felt bad for being unable to tell all stories he wanted to because 'Avatar' took most of his time.

"......the world of Avatar is so sprawling that I can tell most of the stories I want to tell within it and try many of the stylistic techniques that I hope to explore. And secondly, yes... our time as artists is finite. I will always mourn some of the stories that I don't get to make," Deadline quoted Cameron.

However, Cameron admitted that he found "great satisfaction when other directors want to explore some of my ideas, like Kathryn Bigelow did with Strange Days, and Robert Rodriguez did when I passed him the baton on Alita: Battle Angel. I look forward to more collaborations in the future with directors I admire".

Earlier, the Canadian director revealed that he had 'cut about 10 minutes' of 'Avatar: The Way of Water' to the US-based entertainment portal, Variety.

"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 things, depending on how you look at them. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I'm known as an action filmmaker," Variety quoted Cameron.

Meanwhile, the 'Avatar' sequel has now crossed the 1 billion USD mark at the global box office, taking just 14 days to get there.

With this, the James Cameron film has created a record for crossing this coveted milestone faster than any other movie released in 2022.

As per Variety, only three films grossed more than 1 billion USD this year. Other than the 'Avatar' sequel, the list includes 'Top Gun: Maverick' and 'Jurassic World Dominion', which reached the milestone in 31 days and more than four months respectively.

'The Way of Water' is the fastest to gross this amount since 2021's 'Spider-Man: No Way Home'.