Producer Jon Landau Talks ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ and ‘Titanic’

Oscar-winning film producer Jon Landau recently interviewed Deadline’s Pete Hammond, discussing his long history of working with James Cameron. The duo is known for their work together on Titanic (1997), Alita: Battle Angel (2019), and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022).

Landau explained how his relationship began with Cameron when he was at Fox, and Cameron was working on True Lies (1994). Fox got involved, and therefore Landau was attached to the project. 

“Jim (James Cameron) was a little skeptical,” Landau said. “…And it was more like, ‘I understand we’re gonna get to be pretty good friends, or maybe not.’ And I looked at this, and I said, hopefully, pretty good friends.”

Landau described working on True Lies together on “opposite sides of the fence.” When Landau decided to leave the studio, Cameron asked him if he wanted to read a project called Planet Ice. This title turned out to be a codename for Titanic (1997). This turned into a “30-year marriage,” as Cameron described it to Landau.

“We’re not making these movies,” Landau said, referencing Avatar, “because we want to make a sequel to something. We want to make a standalone movie that works. And I think that one of the things I’m very much proud of I think of Way of Water is whether you’ve seen the first movie or not, Way of Water stands on its own as a film. And each of the movies, we want to come to their own story conclusion and their own emotional resolution.”

Landau explained that it took a long time to make a sequel because they had to make several scripts that both he, Cameron, and the cast were willing to commit to.

“I really think that people have to think of performance capture as the 21st version of prosthetics,” Landau said. “No longer does an actor need to sit in a makeup chair for three hours. And when we go through our process, everything you see, every nuance, every blink, every twitch in the mouth. Those are choices that the actors made.” 

The full interview can be watched in its entirety on Deadline.

Landau and Cameron’s Titanic (1997) is currently out in theaters alongside Avatar: The Way of Water.