James Cameron says special effects in Marvel films aren’t “even close” to those in Avatar sequel

"I mean, Thanos. Come on. Give me a break."

Avatar: The Way of Water director James Cameron has said the special effects in his new movie are better than those seen in Marvel films. The filmmaker made the comments while chatting to ComicBook.com to promote the sci-fi sequel which will be out in Irish cinemas on 16 December. Beginning the interview with the outlet, Cameron said: "I just want to say ahead of time that I'm not going to diss the Marvel or the DC Universe. Love those movies." Later, the director was asked if he saw the visual effects in comic book films released after the original Avatar in 2009 as "motivation" to continue raising the bar in terms of special effects. In response, he said:

"Look, what happens is more people are doing visual effects around and obviously, the big comic book superhero films have been driving the sheer volume of the industry, right? "And the rising tide of technique raises everybody together. "It gives you higher quality artists, you've got more tools and plugins and code. You've got more talented people writing code and simulations and all that sort of thing out there. "And then as we're putting our team together and as Weta Digital is constantly having to have new hires and so on, it's coming out of that pool so it improves everything together.

However, Cameron added that the work of Weta FX - which handled the special effects on Avatar: The Way of Water - is "the best". "I mean, ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) does great work, but when it comes to the kind of emotive facial stuff that we're doing, I mean, Thanos? Come on. Give me a break," he said. "You saw this movie. It's not even close." Speaking about the effects in the Avatar sequel, Cameron explained: "Sometimes you can understand the characters' inner monologue with themselves and what they're feeling, even before they say a word."