The esteemed director did a wide-ranging interview with Empire -- where he says, among other things, that he might not actually direct 'Avatar 4' or '5' ... but instead opt to pass the baton to other filmmakers, as he apparently has other stuff he wants to get to.

Cool, cool, cool ... but another even more interesting quote also surfaced in this sit-down -- namely, JC apparently getting preemptively irked about future viewers who might bitch about a likely 3-hour plus movie ... for which he has some words, and even a solution.

Cameron says in part, "I don't want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [television] for eight hours ... I can almost write this part of the review. 'The agonizingly long three-hour movie...' It's like, give me a f***ing break. I've watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row."

He also adds this ... "Here's the big social paradigm shift that has to happen: it's okay to get up and go pee." This part doesn't actually make much sense, unless he's advocating for people to be willing to miss parts of his movie rather than just pee their pants.

Of course, we can't pause films in theaters ... so that seems to be what he's getting at. Now, one way to deal with this organically is to work in a hard intermission, like in the old days.

Even though his other really long movie, 'Titanic,' didn't have an intermission built into the theater screenings when it played in the '90s -- the VHS versions did indeed split the movie into 2 parts. Might not be too lousy of an idea if James is anticipating bladders bursting.