The first two Avatar movies grossed over $5 billion combined. It’s a staggering number that Disney surely thinks will be added to handsomely on December 19 when the third film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, hits theaters. Director James Cameron thinks that too, but he still isn’t 100% sure if it will make quite enough for him to continue the franchise.
As it stands now, Avatar 4 is scheduled for release four years after this film, on December 21, 2029, with the fifth and final film two years after that, on December 19, 2031. But, in a new interview, Cameron explains why there is a slight chance those films might not happen, and why the gap between them will actually be beneficial.
“The big swing in all of this is, do we make any money with Avatar 3?” Cameron said in an interview with Variety. “I mean, we’ll make some money. But the question is, what kind of a profit margin, if any, is there, and how much of an inducement is that to continue on in this universe? Or maybe we wait a while until we figure out how to bring costs down. Because production costs have spiraled over the last few years, especially in VFX. Everything’s gone up an enormous amount, and it’s starting to close out the type of films that I like to make.”
“So there’s an argument for taking a pause and figuring that out,” he continued. “There’s an argument for going out and doing some smaller, more personal film in the meantime, while that gets figured out. There’s an argument, in wild success, for us just launching and just going straight into [Avatar 4 and 5] and I figure out a production methodology where I have a bit of a hiatus where I can make another film. And there’s another argument that says just go make those two damn movies and figure everything else out when I’m 80.”
There’s also a story element here. In the same interview, Cameron explains that Fire and Ash will bring a bit of a close to his Avatar story, while the fourth and fifth films will largely tell a new story. “Two and three really tell one big story,” he said. “And then ultimately, if I get so lucky and I make four and five, four and five tell one big story. So it kind of stops for a beat after the end of three. I don’t mean we’ll necessarily stop in production, but the story kind of stops and then it jumps forward in time a little bit.”
Part of this, of course, is Cameron just being careful. He doesn’t want to count his chickens before they hatch. He knows it’s not a guarantee that Avatar: Fire and Ash grosses $1 billion, let alone $2 billion like the first two films. And yet, he’s James Cameron. If any filmmaker has earned that expectation, it’s him. That’s why Disney has already dated those movies, and while we’d bet almost anything we’ll see them. He just doesn’t want to sound overly confident. But he almost certainly can be.
Read more about Avatar: Fire and Ash, including why it’s almost three hours, over at Variety. It hits theaters on December 19.
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