#James Cameron Wants To Release The Same Story As A Two-Hour Movie And A Six-Hour Streaming Project

What Cameron is talking about here doesn’t sound so different from what other directors of his generation have done already. Specifically, I’m thinking of Steven Soderbergh, whose 2002 remake of “Solaris” Cameron co-produced.

Soderbergh did an experimental murder mystery called “Mosaic” for HBO a few years back, where part of it was interactive. You could experience it through an app that would allow you to view it from different perspectives. A few months after the app launched, he then sort of rereleased it as a 6-episode HBO series, where the viewer was locked into the perspective of what the series showed you, as they would be with other shows or movies.

Quentin Tarantino also did an extended version of “The Hateful Eight” as a miniseries for Netflix, so Cameron’s ideas for a streaming “novel” versus a movie in theaters aren’t without precedent. You could even argue that Robert Rodriguez, who directed “Alita: Battle Angel” (which Cameron also co-produced) did something similar with “From Dusk Till Dawn” when he drew that movie out into a 10-episode TV series.

What it all boils down to is short-form versus long-form. “Titanic” went down like butter with audiences, not a sinking ship, and “Avatar” is “Avatar.” If Cameron wants to make good on the joking promise of a 10-episode Disney+ series called “Avatar: The Book of Norm,” and leverage his clout as a multi-billion-dollar filmmaker to produce long-form content, who’s going to be the one to stop him? You? Me? The very idea seems as priceless as unobtainium.