James Cameron doesn’t want to hear your critiques of the way he writes dialogue

The director has made three of the four highest-grossing movies of all time.

By Joe Allen Updated September 19, 2024 8:53PM

Disney

No director has had more success at the box office over the course of their career than James Cameron. Cameron has directed three of the highest-grossing movies of all time : Titanic, Avatar, and Avatar: The Way of Water. Across those movies and the rest in Cameron’s career, though, people have always pointed out that Cameron’s dialogue can feel a little bit sentimental.

In a recent interview with Empire Magazine for the 40th anniversary of The Terminator, Cameron said that he doesn’t see that original movie as any sort of “holy grail.”

“I look at it now, and there are parts of it that are pretty cringe-worthy, and parts of it that are like, ‘Yeah, we did pretty well for the resources we had available,'” he said.

Cameron specifically called out the way he writes dialogue, though, saying that he doesn’t bristle at any of the writing.

“I don’t cringe on any of the dialogue, but I have a lower cringe factor than, apparently, a lot of people do around the dialogue that I write,” Cameron added. “You know what? Let me see your three-out-of-the-four-highest-grossing films — then we’ll talk about dialogue effectiveness.”

Cameron is no stranger to defending his movies, which have been hugely successful at the box office and have also been met with plenty of critical acclaim. In talking to Empire about the length of Avatar: The Way of Water, which is over three hours long, Cameron was quick to dismiss those who said the movie was too long.“I don’t want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [television] for eight hours,” he said. “I can almost write this part of the review. ‘The agonizingly long three-hour movie…’ It’s like, give me a fucking break. I’ve watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row. Here’s the big social paradigm shift that has to happen: it’s okay to get up and go pee.” Clearly, Cameron feels he knows best.

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Joe Allen is a freelance culture writer based in upstate New York. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The…

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