James Cameron Calls Out Glenn Beck and Global Warming Deniers-We Love Movie

James Cameron Calls Out Glenn Beck and Global Warming Deniers: "

UPDATED: Now with audio!

When your last two feature films have grossed over $3 billion worldwide at the box office, you can pretty much say whatever the hell you want. And that’s exactly what James Cameron did at a press junket yesterday.

The Hollywood Reporter covered the junket, which was promoting the home video release of Avatar. During the junket, Cameron was asked about his feelings on Fox News pundit Glenn Beck. His response? “Glenn Beck is a fucking asshole.” More quotes after the jump.

Why is Glenn Beck a “fucking asshole”? According to Cameron, “I’ve met him. He called me the Antichrist and not about ‘Avatar.’ He hadn’t even seen ‘Avatar’ yet. I don’t know if he has seen it.” The Antichrist remark was in response to the documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, on which Cameron served as Executive Producer. Cameron later appeared to backpedal on his “asshole” remark, saying, “I think, you know what, he may or may not be an asshole, but he certainly is dangerous, and I’d love to have a dialogue with him.”

When asked why he was dangerous, Cameron responded:

He’s dangerous because his ideas are poisonous…I couldn’t believe when he was on CNN. I thought, what happened to CNN? Who is this guy? Who is this madman? And then of course he wound up on Fox News, which is where he belongs, I guess.

Responding to right-wing attacks to him, Cameron said:

They’re not attacks. They’re just people ranting away, lost in their little bubbles of reality, steeped in their own hatred, their own fear and hatred. That’s where it all comes from. Let’s just call it out. Let’s have a public discussion. That’s what movies are supposed to do, you know, you can have a mindless entertainment film that doesn’t affect anybody. I wasn’t interested in that…I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads.

Cameron also had some choice words for people who don’t believe in climate change, saying:

Anybody that is a global-warming denier at this point in time has got their head so deeply up their ass I’m not sure they could hear me…Look, at this point I’m less interested in making money for the movie and more interested in saving the world that my children are going to inhabit. How about that? I mean look, I didn’t make this movie with these strong environmental anti-war themes in it to make friends on the right, you know…But you know they’ve got to live in this world too. And their children do as well, so they’re going to have to be answerable to this at some point.

[Cameron expanded on some of the environmental messages of the film during my interview with him back in December.]

I have a feeling Fox execs weren’t too pleased with Cameron calling out a major personality on their own news network, not to mention potentially alienating a significant percentage of the electorate. Then again, Cameron already has enough “Fuck you” money to last for several lifetimes, so I don’t suppose he’ll care too much.

Here’s some of the audio from the press conference: