What did Roland Emmerich say about James Cameron? "Avatar" director responds to criticism

Roland Emmerich called James Cameron "overbearing" during the San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024.

When a fellow filmmaker Louis Leterrier asked James about his experience working with the Avatar director on the remake of Fantastic Voyage, Rolland replied,

"James Cameron is very overbearing, and so I, at one point, just gave up. Because it’s like, ‘Is it your movie or my movie?'"

James Cameron has been working on a remake of the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage. Emmerich exited the project while it was in its very early stages in 2007. While recalling his exit at the Comic-Con he said,

"Look, I’m going to have to say, I do my stuff, and when I cannot do my stuff, I’m like totally not interested. It’s as simple as that. So when someone else wants to say something to me and is more powerful to me, I drop out."

In talks with The Hollywood Reporter, Cameron has responded to the "overbearing" remarks made by Emmerich and said "damn right."

Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 sci-fi film where a team of scientists is miniaturized and injected into a human body to perform a life-saving mission, navigating through the bloodstream to remove a dangerous blood clot.

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James Cameron doesn't remember asking Roland Emmerich to be the director

While responding to Emmerich's criticism, James Cameron in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published on August 12.

"I’ve never said anything negative about Roland."

He further said,

"When it’s a project where I’ve contributed to the writing, I might actually have an opinion on it."

James Cameron wrote the draft for the remake film and also remains a producer. Cameron noted he "doesn't remember" asking Roland about the remake.

"I actually don’t even remember talking to Roland Emmerich about Fantastic. I remember the other directors that we worked with for months on end trying to develop that project. If I talked to Roland, it was for two minutes. I have a pretty good memory and I don’t remember that at all," Cameron said.

While talking about the film's progress during a masterclass session at La Cinematheque in Paris in April 2024, Avatar irector James gave an update saying he and the team have been "developing it for a number of years" and "plan to go ahead with it very soon."

However, during the recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter on August 12, James had no update about the progress and said, "Move on, that's a non-story." He also mentioned working on a "Classified" Terminator project, after directing The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and producing Terminator: Dark Fate (2019).