Filmmaker James Cameron has doubled down on his criticism for the Academy Awards. The director said that he never thinks about the marquee award event at any stage of a film, whether it be pre-preproduction, principal photography, post-production, or post-release. Speaking to The Globe and Mail, Cameron criticised The Academy for snubbing science fiction films, such as Denis Villeneuve's Dune movies. The writer-director does not make films to cater to the sensibilities of The Academy voters, because he thinks that the Oscars do not honour sci-fi films. According to Cameron, the Director’s Guild failed to recognise Villeneuve as a filmmaker. 

“Like okay, you can play the awards game or you can play the game I like to play and that’s to make movies people actually go to,” Cameron said. 

Interestingly, Cameron's comments stand in stark contrast with the Oscar wins for the first two films in the Avatar franchise in the technical categories. Further, he went into the record books for making the film with the highest Academy Award wins, Titanic with 11, a record it holds alongside The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Ben-Hur. Titanic is also the film with the most Oscar nominations (14), a record it shares with La La Land and All About Eve. Interestingly, back in the 1990s, critics were of the consesus that LA Confidential was a better film than Titanic, although the latter won Best Picture Oscar.

Cameron's contention with The Academy is not new. The filmmaker, who called himself 'King of the World' after his Titanic Oscar win, first took a major stance against the organisation after losing 2010 Best Picture Oscar to The Hurt Locker and Best Director to his former wife and the said war film's maker Kathryn Bigelow. He has often rebuked the institution's apparent prioritisation of conventional dramas over technical blockbusters and science fiction.

Speaking of which, Cameron's latest film Avatar: Fire and Ash hit theatres on December 19, Friday.