Many gun scenes were cut from "Avatar 2" Cameron: I don't want to glorify guns

“I had a bit of a crisis of faith when we were editing the movie,” James Cameron recently said while discussing Avatar: The Way of Water reaching $1 billion at the box office.

"[The film] was too violent," he explained. "I wanted to balance the beauty, the epiphany, the spirituality and the action, but I felt it was too dark."

Although the film ultimately ran three hours, Cameron said he actually removed some of the violent scenes during editing.

Cameron said: "I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie to aim for action shots. Of course, movies have to have conflict. Violence and action are the same thing, depending on how you look at it. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I am famous for making action films."

He added: "I look back at some of the movies I've made and I don't know if in this world I want to make a movie like I did 30-something years ago with 'Terminator'. The state of guns in our society makes me sick to my stomach."

"I'm glad I live in New Zealand now, where they banned all assault rifles two weeks after that horrific mosque shooting a few years ago."