James Cameron blev, via den første Avatar-film, anerkendt som værende manden man går til i forhold til stærke CG-effekter i storfilm, og en af grundene til at Avatar: The Way of Water tog så lang tid at lave, var at Cameron skulle skubbe til grænsen for grafisk kunnen i storfilm.
Det gør desuden at han føler sig sikker nok i sin sag til at sige til Variety, at hans specialeffekter er flottere end Marvels:
"Obviously the big comic book films have been driving the sheer volume of the industry... the rising tide of technique raises everybody together. It gives you higher quality artists, more tools and plug-ins and code [to use]. You've got more talented people writing code out there. Our team at WETA Digital is constantly having new hires, and it's coming out of that pool. So it improves everything. That said, WETA Effects, as it's called now, is the best. Right? Industrial Light & Magic does great work, but when it comes to the kind of emotive facial stuff that we're doing... Thanos? Come on. Give me a break. You saw ['Avatar: The Way of Water']. It's not even close. It's what WETA did."
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