As part of their Directors on Directors series, Variety have published a virtual rountable between two of sci-fi's heaviest hitters, James Cameron and Denis Villeneuve.

There's a half hour video and also a transcript. 

If you're at all interested in how films are made, this is well worth either a watch or read.

A few highlights.

Villeneuve talks about how his experience in filming nature documentaries taught him about the power of landscapes.

And cracks a decent sandworm joke.

Villeneuve who is known to prefer physical sets over greenscreen, asked Cameron how he and actors work a forest scene.

I took the actors on what I called a sense-memory odyssey. We went to Kauai. We lived in the rainforest for a few days. We cooked in underground fire pits. We drank water from the leaves. I said, “All right, we’re going to walk up a trail and I want you to observe as much as you can about how you place your feet, how you place your hands when you go up a steep section. You’re going to have to remember it, what it felt like, what it smelled like, and you’re going to have to bring it back into a relatively sterile environment.” We all just embarked on that journey.

Cameron reveals that he has shot all of Avatar 2 and 3 and a little bit of 4, because of that irritating habit children have of growing.

Also that later films show us Earth.

Well, it was a challenging decision because I either wanted to do it right, or just not even do it. I just made this — I guess, strange — decision that everything that I needed to say artistically about the things that were important to me, I could say within the framework of the universe that I knew it could be. Just like “Dune” takes place across worlds, the later “Avatar”s take place across…certainly across two worlds, because some of it takes place on Earth as the story evolves, and different biomes within. Arrakis is the desert planet, right?

Did he almost just reveal something unintended with his "certainly across two worlds"? As in there could also be others?

Interestingly Cameron also talks about his vision for the new world of entertainment with the increasing relevance of streaming.

I think what we can see is an expanded form of cinema. I want to do a movie that’s six hours long and two and a half hours long at the same time. Same movie. You can stream it for six hours, or you can go and have a more condensed, roller coaster, immersive version of that experience in a movie theater. Same movie. Just, one’s the novel, and one’s the movie. Why not? Let’s just use these platforms in ways that haven’t been done before.

Avatar 2 is set to release in Australian cinemas on December 15, 2022.

Dune II is expected to release in late 2023.

[ Main Image: Directors on Directors. Credit: Variety via YouTube. ]

References

Variety (December 16, 2021). James Cameron & Denis Villeneuve on 'Avatar', 'Dune', and Pioneering CGI | Directors on Directors. YouTube.

Vary, Adam B. (December 15, 2021). James Cameron and Denis Villeneuve Talk ‘Avatar,’ ‘Dune’ and the Future of Movies. Variety.