Not even Avatar star Sam Worthington is entirely sure what’s in the new eight minutes that will be added to the film’s rerelease next month. There’s certainly a lot of material to choose from.
‘I wish we added eight hours,’ the actor said at a press event today. ‘I think the first cut I saw was about six hours long.’
Worthington was talking to press at the offices of Radical Studios, where his production company, Full Clip, has set up a comic imprint. The first title, Damaged (to be written by no less a luminary than David Lapham), is coming in February. But in the meantime we all want to know about Avatar, the biggest movie ever made.
So what does Worthington think is going to be in the eight minutes? ‘[Cameron] hasn’t told us. There’s a couple of extra hunting scenes. There’s a much-speculated and blogged sex scene everyone keeps fuckking harping on about. To be honest, I think everyone’s going to be disappointed that’s it’s not blue porn.’
Worthington does think that some of the new footage could be of just plain old human being actors. ‘There’s a lot of other character parts. Giovanni [Ribisi] stuff and Stephen Lang stuff. So it’s up to Jim. I know Jim would only release it if it enhanced the story by putting it back in.’
What would be in a six hour cut of Avatar? More of the stuff that was in the original Project 880 treatment, probably, including much more time spent on Earth in the beginning. ‘We shot all that. When we first saw all that, it didn’t [work]. You just want to get to the planet. It’s kind of a slow burn. Jim always wanted it to be a slow burn start so that you would adjust your eyes and adjust tothe world, but it because too much of slow burn. It was like, “hurry the f–k up, man.”‘
As for Avatar 2? Worthington has no idea. ‘Avatar 2 will be whenever Jim decides to write
it. I think he’s in Thailand at the moment or trying to save the gulf. But I’m
sure he’s going to put pen to paper soon.’
So there’s your bullshit headline: Jim Cameron Writing Avatar 2 Soon.