James Cameron to the Haters: ‘Let Me See’ Your ‘Highest-Grossing Films’
James Cameron has seen the gripes from critics about “cringe” dialog in his blockbusters, and to them, he has a message: how much have your films made?
“I don’t cringe on any of the dialogue, but I have a lower cringe factor than, apparently, a lot of people do around the dialogue that I write,” the filmmaker told Empire in an interview regarding the 40th anniversary of his career-launching The Terminator. “You know what? Let me see your three-out-of-the-four-highest-grossing films — then we’ll talk about dialogue effectiveness.”
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Cameron is of course referring to the fact that he’s responsible for three of the top four highest-grossing films of all time. Avatar is in first, while its sequel The Way of Water is third, and Titanic sits at Number Four. His next movie, Avatar Fire and Ash will likely end up in that list as well after it officially releases in 2025.
While he’s undoubtedly one of the most successful filmmakers ever, for both professional critics and the more casual movie fan, his groundbreaking visual spectacles have been matched with what they’ve considered to be less than inspired writing.
Cringe or not, Cameron’s writing did give Arnold Schwarzenegger his famed catchphrase.
Elsewhere in his Empire interview, Cameron called Terminator “near and dear” as his breakout film, lauding Schwarzenegger for the movie’s success.
“I’m proud of the fact that we weren’t stuck enough to not be able to see how it could work with Arnold, because it wasn’t our vision,” Cameron told the publication. “Sometimes, when you look back from the vantage point — at this point 40 years — we could have made a great little film from a production-value standpoint, and it would have been nothing if we hadn’t made that one decision that captured the imagination of people.”
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