Director James Cameron said Tuesday that his upcoming big-budget 3-D movie "Avatar" couldn't possibly live up to the hype on the Internet ahead of its release late next year.
The Internet has been buzzing about the sci-fi thriller shot with motion-capture technology and the 3-D camera system he helped develop with partner Vince Pace. There are even movie trailers made by fans that apparently have nothing to do with the movie.
"Whatever they think it's going to be, it's probably not," Cameron said on the sidelines of a conference on 3-D entertainment in Los Angeles.
The $200 million movie is in production ahead of its planned Dec. 18, 2009 release and Cameron does not yet have a trailer prepared.
"We are making the movie in blocks. You can't cut a great trailer right now because so much of the movie would be unrepresented," he said.
When asked about high expectations, the director of all-time U.S. box office record holder "Titanic" said he had stopped trying to meet them.
"I went out and got drunk, contemplated the whole thing and got over it," he said, adding, however, that "Avatar" was "really cool" and "groundbreaking" for its combination of motion capture, computer graphics and live action.
"Sometimes we stop working on it and just stare at it because it's just mesmerizing," he said.
He said he had not met with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. executives about the marketing plan, but that the movie studio did not want to put out anything too early. The studio is a unit of News Corp.