Avatar 2’s CGI Beats Marvel’s Work On Thanos According To James Cameron

Acclaimed director James Cameron believes the VFX work done on Avatar: The Way Of Water beats what Marvel Studios accomplished with Thanos in the last two Avengers movies by a wide margin. A passion project of Cameron’s, Avatar: The Way Of Water debuts in theaters 13 years after the release of the original movie. Avatar took the world by storm in 2009, with critics and audience’s alike stunned by the movie’s groundbreaking CGI and use of 3D technology. Avatar went on to become the highest-grossing movie of all-time, with over $2.9 billion.

Now, Cameron has claimed in an interview with Comicbook that Thanos’ CGI in the Avengers movies doesn’t come close to the work done on Avatar: The Way Of Water. Cameron brought back the cast from the original movie for the sequel, including leads Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, and the curious return of Sigourney Weaver. With that component handled, Cameron also appears to have outdone himself in bringing back the visual magic from the first movie. The director supported the movie’s VFX work by saying Avatar: The Way Of Water manages to outdo Thanos’s facial expressions by a wide margin. Read the full quote below:

ILM does great work, but when it comes to emotive facial stuff….Thanos? Come on. Give me a break. You saw Avatar The Way Of Water, It’s not even close!

James Cameron Has Always Been At The Forefront Of VFX Tech

Cameron has proven himself one of the most ingenious directors right from the start of his career, always finding new ways to advance technology in the movie industry. His need to advance CGI was what delayed the Avatar sequels for so long, for instance. Cameron’s fondness for spearheading new technology has led to many interesting developments. In 1991, Cameron was granted a US patent for the creation of an apparatus that propels a person in an underwater environment, which facilitated film production underwater. This invention would help greatly two of the director’s future movies, Titanic and Avatar: The Way Of Water.

Cameron’s magnum opus, Avatar, would debut in 2009 and change the game for every working filmmaker in the industry. The movie brought forward a number of technical inventions, delivering a spectacular visual feast that was the best use of 3D in Hollywood’s history. The movie had such a focus on its technology that Avatar lacked in story, which fortunately the sequel appears to have balanced well. Avatar’s technology included the use of a mixture of live-action footage and CGI, using a more advanced version of performance capture, previously used by director Robert Zemeckis in The Polar Express. After a year of work, Cameron and a group of artists were successful in crafting a way of transferring their work onto images that looked like real photos. This use of digital animation helped Avatar achieve its signature look.

Will Avatar’s Intended Sequels Happen?

After 13 years, Avatar: The Way Of Water has the job of honoring the original movie and surpassing the work it did, both in technology and story. Cameron has talked about his idea of the Avatar franchise going to 6 or 7 movies. If the director is to get what he wants, Avatar: The Way Of Water needs to perform exceptionally well at the box office. No one, other than Cameron, is expecting the movie to reach the heights of the original, or even break the $2 billion mark. The expected range the movie should reach in order to warrant the continuation of Cameron’s dream is likely in the $1 billion to $2 billion mark. If the sequel can improve on the original’s story problems and get moviegoers to turn up to 3D screenings after years of leaving the feature behind, the Avatar franchise could very well have at least another decade of content on the way.