Sam Worthington Talks About the Reaction to the AVATAR Trailer and TERMINATOR SALVATION

A few days ago I was on the set of “Clash of the Titans” in London with a number of other online journalists. While we’re all under embargo from posting anything we saw on set, we’ve been cleared to write about other subjects that were discussed during our onset interviews. Since we were talking to Sam Worthington on “Avatar” day last Friday, of course we discussed the online reaction to the trailer and we also talked about what was his reaction to the mixed reviews on “Terminator Salvation”. His comments are after the jump:

While his comments regarding the reaction to “Terminator Salvation” and the “Avatar” trailer are interesting, he also talked about how he’s trying to get in on the ground floor regarding future comic book movies. To do that, he put a friend on his pay roll and sent him to this year’s Comic-Con to seek out cool properties. While some actors let their agents and managers do all the work, this is just another sign that Sam is going to be around for awhile as he’s trying to set things up on his own. Very smart. Here’s what Sam had to say:

What’s his thoughts on the reaction to “Terminator Salvation”:

Sam: Terminator? It was dark. There is no humor. That’s what we set out to do. It’s kind of humbling the way that they describe your performance against Christian’s, but we have no control over that. We just have to do the best character that we can do at that time. And you know, there was a lot of kind of, you know, I can nitpick with the best of them, man, and kind of go down the list of things I saw on IMDB where they found holes in it and go, you are fucking right. If there was a big ten ton robot coming outside that gas station, surely we would fucking hear it! And I missed that. So I’m going to be a bit better when I’m looking through my fucking scripts. So it raises my game a bit, because now I feel like an idiot for not saying it to McG, you know?

His thoughts on “Avatar”:

Sam: It’s got a hell of a lot of hype. I read all what was said yesterday about the, about the trailer. I can see their point. But as I said, it wasn’t meant to be built for an Apple Mac. It’s built for IMAX. It’s built for 3D. That’s what he’s designed it for. He’s designed it to bring people back to the cinema. It’s interesting that he’s released that trailer, that Jim’s gone and done that, and then the next day goes and shows it on IMAX. One extreme to the other. We get the criticism, and then we get the rave reviews of what it really looks like in its own formula. That’s obviously going to get people to think and go, well, damn right. I’m going to go see this at the cinema. Jim has always said to me, he wants to bring people back to the movies. And he’s a smart enough man to, that to be tactical.

How important is it for you to be with the movie from the ground floor up?

Sam: Extremely important. That’s what I always wanted to aim for in the big league, you know, in America. Because in a sense in Australia it got to that point where you could come in and straight away you were the writer, director, formulating what’s going on. To have that opportunity is extremely humbling and man I’m a very, very lucky man to be able to come in with a director like Louis, six months prior, to sit down and discuss with the writers the direction we should be taking and the tone of the piece and things like that. I’m extremely lucky at this early stage in my career.

Do you have any projects that you would like to usher in yourself?

Sam: If they pop up mate. I’ve got a mate that like I was sending to Comic-con to go and find stuff. Man, he’s a dude, he plays Guitar Hero and reads comic books and I thought fuck it, I’ll put you on the pay roll. They’re the movies getting made so I flew him to Comic-Con and he had a ball, and he came back and went I met this person and this person and this person and this person. I like this project and this project and this project. Suddenly you sit down and talk and you go well, you’re the eyes and ears of people who are going to see movies, so why not use him.

What did he come back with?

Sam: He came back with lots of different material. He talked to a lot of different kind of comic book companies. He said like me let’s get in on the ground floor, before they even release a movie, let’s get in there and say this’ll be great for either Sam or someone else. With this director and this thing. That’s the ultimate job for him and I thought why not? We do it for nothing anyway, we might as well get paid for it.

Again, very smart. While I’d love to talk about what I saw while on the set of “Clash of the Titans”, it’s going to be a number of months before I can say a word. Until then…