James Cameron Explains Why 'Avatar 2' is More Than Three Hours Long

James Cameron explained the long runtime in an interview with Total Film magazine.

“The goal is to tell an extremely compelling story on an emotional basis,” James said. “I would say the emphasis in the new film is more on character, more on story, more on relationships, more on emotion. We didn’t spend as much time on relationship and emotion in the first film as we do in the second film, and it’s a longer film, because there’s more characters to service. There’s more story to service.”

James also talked to Empire and said that he wasn’t interested in fans complaining about the long runtime.

“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 f–king 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.”