Not everyone who watched the 15 minutes then left the cinema satisfied…

"The reaction was absolutely the antonym to whatever criticism we had based on viewing the teaser online, on your laptop, because the exit polling and all the post-interviews were 100 per cent.

"It was not 100 per cent in the blogosphere, based on the teaser trailer itself, and I think we learned some stuff from that experience - that people seem to crave more story.

"It wasn’t sufficient just to dazzle them with the imagery. Most of the comments were “Jury’s still out, because we don’t know the story yet.”

"I thought that was tremendously telling, because it really shows that no matter how dazzling the visuals are, or promise to be, people still want to know what it’s about.

"They want to know who the people are. So the long-form theatrical trailer is much more story-focused. Because we have a great story, you know? We just weren’t selling that."

Did the blogs annoy you?

"The film will be judged in due course. It’s not like we shrug and say, “Well, they didn’t like our trailer, let’s not release the movie.”

"The movie’s coming out. It’s inevitable, like having a baby - baby’s coming out, movie’s coming out. So you just have to focus on making the film the best that it can possibly be."
 
For the full James Cameron interview, check out the January Issue of Total Film magazine. It comes with a free 36-page supplement dedicated to the man and his work, and with a specially-penned intro by Cameron’s biggest fan, Guillermo del Toro.