- James Cameron has an optimistic view on AI use in filmmaking
- “That’s not about laying off half the staff” he says
- He reveals how he feels about OpenAI
James Cameron, director of films like Avatar, Terminator, and Titanic, has opened up about his new, more optimistic stance on the use of generative AI in Hollywood.
The three-time Oscar winner spoke to Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth On the podcast Boz to the Future. He explained to the host what needs to happen if audiences “want to continue to see” big blockbusters.
Read more: Cameron reveals Avatar 3 was split from Avatar 2
Cameron’s last film, Avatar: The Way of Water, is one of the most expensive films ever made with a reported $460 million budget.
Read more: James Cameron shares very early reactions to Avatar 3
He acknowledged in the conversation that, since COVID, Hollywood has become more cost-conscious. He suggested that AI could actually be the key to reducing budgets on large-scale productions, such as “my films, or big effects-heavy, CG-heavy films.”
Cutting movie budgets in half
Cameron, who joined the board of AI firm Stability AI last year, told Bosworth “If we want to continue to see the kinds of movies that I’ve always loved … Dune, Dune: Part Two … we’ve got to figure out how to cut the cost of that in half.”
He clarified that smarter use of AI in filmmaking wouldn’t mean letting staff go, but rather helping them work more efficiently and increase their output.
“That’s not about laying off half the staff and at the effects company. That’s about doubling their speed to completion on a given shot, so your cadence is faster and your throughput cycle is faster, and artists get to move on and do other cool things and then other cool things, right? That’s my sort of vision for that,” he explained.
Speaking on the Stable Diffusion image model – a powerful tool that uses deep learning to generate highly detailed images from text prompts – the director said “In the old days, I would have founded a company to figure it out. I’ve learned that maybe that’s not the best way to do it. So I thought, ‘All right, I’ll join the board of a good, competitive company that’s got a good track record,”.
He continued to explain that joining them was not a money making decision, but “to try to integrate it into a VFX workflow” in his filmmaking.
James Cameron addresses OpenAI use
The trend of people using OpenAI to create video from “in the style of” prompts makes Cameron “a little bit queasy”. Yet, he admitted that it’s similar to what he already does in his own head. “I aspire to be in the style of Ridley Scott, in the style of Stanley Kubrick. That’s my text prompt that runs in my head as a filmmaker,” Cameron said. “In the style of George Miller: wide lens, low, hauling ass, coming up into a tight close up. Yeah, I want to do that. I know my influences. Everybody knows their influences.”
Because of this, he believes Hollywood and regulators should be focusing on the output of generative AI rather than the input.
“If I exactly copy ‘Star Wars,’ I’ll get sued. Actually, I won’t even get that far. Everybody’ll say, ‘Hey, it’s too much like ‘Star Wars,’ we’re going to get sued now.’ I won’t even get the money. And as a screenwriter, you have a kind of built in ethical filter that says, ‘I know my sources, I know what I liked, I know what I’m emulating.’ I also know that I have to move it far enough away that it’s my own independent creation,” he explained.
He added, “So I think the whole thing needs to be managed from a legal perspective, as to what’s the output, not what’s the input…My input is whatever I choose it to be, and whatever has accumulated throughout my life. My output, every script I write, should be judged on whether it’s too close, too plagiaristic”.
Cameron’s third instalment in the Avatar series, Avatar: Fire and Ash, will hit theaters in December 2025.
You can watch the full hour-long conversation between him and Boswirth in the video above.
