James Cameron Hates Audiences ‘Whining’ About Movie Runtimes, Encourages ‘Pee’ Breaks During ‘Avatar 2’

Avatar filmmaker James Cameron says it is totally fine if you need to get some bladder relief during a screening of his upcoming sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water. The director also does not want to hear anyone complain about the film’s length, noting how television viewers have no problem sitting through multiple hours of episodes during a binge. The one difference between seeing a movie and binging TV at home though is the pause button.

“I don’t want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [television] for eight hours,” Cameron told Empire, via Slash Film. “I can almost write this part of the review. ‘The agonizingly long three-hour movie…’ It’s like, give me a f—ing break. I’ve watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row.”

Cameron later said he would like to see audiences embrace going to the bathroom during a movie. “Here’s the big social paradigm shift that has to happen: it’s okay to get up and go pee,” Cameron said. Of course, Cameron could push Disney to add an intermission if he does not want anyone to miss any part of the story, but he didn’t say if he will.

Cameron has not been shy about making long movies, which he can do since they usually turn out to be good. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) reaches 137 minutes, while Titanic (1997) is a monumental 195 minutes. The first Avatar, which will be re-released to theaters on Sept. 23, ran 162 minutes in its original release. Other Hollywood blockbusters have pushed the test limits of the human bladder like the three-hour superhero hits The Avengers: Endgame and The Batman.

Elsewhere in his interview with Empire, Cameron surprisingly admitted that he may have to hand his planned fourth and fifth Avatar movies to other directors. “The Avatar films themselves are kind of all-consuming,” he said, via Entertainment Weekly. “I’ve got some other things I’m developing as well that are exciting. I think eventually over time – I don’t know if that’s after three or after four – I’ll want to pass the baton to a director that I trust to take over, so I can go do some other stuff that I’m also interested in. Or maybe not. I don’t know.”

Although he might not direct it, Cameron promised that Avatar 4 will be a “corker” and a “motherf—er” if he can make it. “But it depends on market forces. Three is in the can so it’s coming out regardless. I really hope that we get to make four and five because it’s one big story, ultimately,” he said.

Avatar: The Way of Water opens on Dec. 16, 13 years after the first film opened. The cast includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Giovani Ribisi, Michelle Yeoh, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, and Edie Falco. Avatar 3 is scheduled for Dec. 20, 2024, and was already filmed, Cameron said. Avatar 4 is scheduled for December 2026 and Avatar 5 will come two years later.