Avatar director Jame Cameron hopes AI could cut costs for films without 'laying off half the staff'

James Cameron wants AI to cut costs in filmmaking without "laying off half the staff".

The Academy Award-winning director - who has helmed the likes of 'The Terminator', 'Titanic' and 'Avatar' - joined Stability AI's Board of Directors after softening his stance on artificial intelligence, and he has insisted the technology may have a place in Hollywood.

He told the 'Boz to the Future' podcast: "If we want to continue to see the kinds of movies that I’ve always loved and that I like to make and that I will go to see — 'Dune', 'Dune: Part Two', or one of my films or big effects-heavy, CG-heavy films — we’ve got to figure out how to cut the cost of that in half...

"Now that’s not about laying off half the staff 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.”

Cameron insisted his concerns about cost cutting for large scale blockbusters are "not just hypothetical".

He knows there needs to be some changes if audiences "want to continue to see" that kind of movie.

Reflecting on his decision to join Stability AI's board in September 2024, he said: "The goal was to understand the space, to understand what’s on the minds of the developers.

“What are they targeting? What’s their development cycle? How much resources you have to throw at it to create a new model that does a purpose-built thing?

"And my goal was to try to integrate it into a VFX workflow."

Back in 2023, Cameron referenced his own 1984 movie 'The Terminator' as he insisted "the weaponisation of AI is the biggest danger".

He told CTV News: "I warned you guys in 1984, and you didn't listen."

At the time, Cameron pointed to the limitations of AI when it comes to actually writing a story based on what real people have already made.

He argued: "I just don’t personally believe that a disembodied mind that’s just regurgitating what other embodied minds have said — about the life that they’ve had, about love, about lying, about fear, about mortality — and just put it all together into a word salad and then regurgitate it …

"I don’t believe that have something that’s going to move an audience.

"Let’s wait 20 years, and if an AI wins an Oscar for Best Screenplay, I think we’ve got to take them seriously.”

Meanwhile, Cameron has admitted his third 'Avatar' film will be even longer than the second.

While he had too many "great ideas" packed into 2022's 'Avatar: The Way of Water' - which clocked in at three hours and 12 minutes - he's gone even bigger with the upcoming 'Avatar: Fire and Ash'.

Cameron told Empire magazine: "In a nutshell, we had too many great ideas packed into act one of movie 2. The [film] was moving like a bullet train, and we weren’t drilling down enough on character. So I said, ‘Guys, we’ve got to split it.’

“Movie 3 will actually be a little bit longer than movie 2.”