Well-known Hollywood filmmaker James Cameron is a fan of Indian films. Talking to an Indian publication, the veteran filmmaker said that he enjoys watching Indian films because they focus on family, friends, and personal duty towards the people around.
When asked about similarities between his films and those made in India, Camron told Bombay Times that the only difference is that his films do not have “a song and dance number at the end”.
He also recalled his conversation with acclaimed Indian filmmaker SS Rajamouli at the Critics’ Choice Awards in Los Angeles and added that watching RRR (2022) made him analyse what he likes about Indian films.
“I was talking to SS Rajamouli about RRR and how much I enjoyed the physical production, the beauty, and spectacle that he had created in his film, but also the tension, the action, and all the things that I like,” he said.
The filmmaker further added, “That film made me think about the Indian film industry at large and how much I enjoy Indian films for those reasons – whether it is the emphasis on family, friendship, personal duty towards the people around you and all those things.”
Cameron also revealed that he had not seen any Indian film when he was making Titanic 25 years ago. “I visited India for the first time in 2010 and made a lot of new friends who are still in touch with me. I have paid a lot more attention to Indian cinema since then. The interesting thing was that we didn’t really have a strong release for Titanic in India when it was first released in 1997, because India was making so many of their own movies that you weren’t that interested in our films. Today, I can’t help but notice that India was one of our strongest territories for the new Avatar film (Avatar: The Way of Water, 2022), so it’s a changing and expanding market,” he said.
His film Titanic has been re-released worldwide including in India to mark the 25th anniversary of the blockbuster film.