James Cameron Had Strong Reaction When Josh Brolin Turned Down Avatar

Josh Cameron was reportedly angry when Josh Brolin turned down a role in an Avatar movie. Brolin spoke about the hiccup in an interview with Graham Bensinger on Saturday, though he didn’t reveal any details on the part or why he turned it down. It wasn’t the first time Brolin has mentioned the spat, but it sounds like his perspective has changed.

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Brolin appeared on In Depth with Graham Bensinger this weekend, and the topic of Cameron and the Avatar franchise came up. He said: “I heard he was angry. I understand it, because when you have something in your mind and you have a status and a power… you’re used to people feeling really grateful that you are offering it to them.” Brolin qualified the story by saying he doesn’t know how Cameron feels about the whole debacle for sure, adding: “I don’t know if that’s the case with him because I don’t know him well enough. But it was based on the [project]. It wasn’t based on him.”

Brolin has spoken about this disagreement before – in 2017 he mentioned it during a profile by Esquire, saying he wasn’t interested in the political games of Hollywood. He said: “If I don’t want to do Avatar, I’m not doing Avatar. James Cameron’s f-ing calling me this name and that name. Whatever. If James Cameron came to me and said, ‘Hey, man, why’d you say that?’ I’d go, ‘Because it happened.’”

Considering Cameron’s plans for the Avatar franchise, we have no way of knowing which role the filmmaker had in mind for Brolin. Since the conversation goes back to 2017, he could have been talking about the second entry, Avatar: The Way of Water, which came out in 2022. The movie was repeatedly delayed for a number of reasons, but now Cameron plans to move forward with at least three more installments in quick succession. Avatar: Fire and Ash is slated for release on December 19, 2025.

Cameron’s Reputation

Brolin emphasized that he turned down the Avatar franchise, not Cameron himself. Avatar was a smash hit when it premiered in 2009, but it was delayed so long that the idea of a sequel became memetic. Meanwhile, the simplistic story underlying its breathtaking visual effects became an object of mockery in some circles as well. However, Cameron does have a long-standing reputation of being difficult to work with. Collaborators including Ed Harris, Kate Winslet, Leonardo Di Caprio and Orson Scott Card have all testified to his temper publicly.

Brolin did find himself in a space opera anyway when he played Gurney Halleck in Dune and Dune: Part Two. Brolin told Bensinger that he took the role because he had a good time working with director Villeneuve back in 2015 on Sicario. He said: “I didn’t even need to read that, because it’s Denis, and I love Denis. So I had a relationship with Denis, and it was like, ‘I don’t care what the role is, I’ll do anything with you.’”