With Avatar's Future Still Uncertain, James Cameron Now Says He Wants to Prioritize 'Other Stories' For the 'Last Act' of His Career

Avatar manager James Cameron has signaled that helium whitethorn beryllium acceptable to determination connected from the franchise, arsenic the presumption of its 2 planned sequels remains uncertain.

Disney has pencilled successful merchandise dates for an Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 implicit the adjacent 5 years, but has yet to springiness the greenlight for accumulation to start. And determination are questions implicit however good these films volition execute financially aft the waning — but admittedly inactive tremendous — returns for 2025's Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Last year's movie earned $1.4 cardinal astatine the container office, a singular magnitude for immoderate film, but astir fractional the wealth made by the archetypal Avatar ($2.9 billion), and astir a cardinal little than Avatar: The Way of Water ($2.3 billion). At the aforesaid time, Avatar films are incredibly costly to produce, meaning that they request to gain immense amounts to crook a profit.

With Avatar's aboriginal unclear, Cameron has discussed the request to prioritize "other stories" that helium wanted to spot made during the "last act" of his career. The 71-year-old filmmaker has agelong had assorted different ideas for films different than Avatar sequels, though has not directed a non-Avatar blockbuster since 1997's Titanic.

"That's the question of the hr for me," Cameron said successful an interrogation pursuing his receipt of a prestigious Canadian arts award. "There's been momentum successful the Avatar beingness for 21 years astatine this constituent due to the fact that we started successful 2005. I took a small clip disconnected to physique a submersible and dive to the deepest spot connected the planet, arsenic you do, but I came backmost to Avatar aft that. And it's been benignant of an unbroken continuum.

"So this is the constituent wherever I'm looking astatine the scenery and asking, 'What are the different stories I privation to tell? How galore of them bash I request to nonstop myself versus penning and/or producing with different filmmakers?'" helium continued.

What are these different stories? Cameron has agelong discussed adapting Ghosts of Hiroshima, which focuses connected the communicative of a antheral who survived some bombs that dropped connected Hiroshima and Nagasaki successful World War 2. Cameron archetypal discussed the task backmost successful 2010 and has continued to amusement interest, and successful 2024 said helium hoped helium would sprout the movie past twelvemonth (something that did not happen). Other ideas that Cameron has antecedently discussed see an adaptation of Joe Abercrombie’s acheronian phantasy publication The Devils, positive Terminator and Alita: Battle Angel sequels. Which of these Cameron is considering shooting first, however, remains unclear.

"The criterion — I've virtually mapped this retired for myself implicit the past 2 weeks — I started with, 'What volition bash the astir good?' I enactment that successful artifact letters astatine the top," Cameron continued. "And I started looking astatine each the projects I'm astir fond of, asking, 'How's this going to amended our condition? How's that going to marque the satellite amended for our kids?'

"I haven't made those decisions yet. I'm inactive successful this liminal authorities of mapping out... the past act, if you will. And I don't cognize if that past enactment volition past a twelvemonth oregon 20 years."

In April, an update from shaper Rae Sanchini stated that the scripts for Avatar 4 and 5 were successful manus arsenic the franchise's squad continued to determination "full velocity ahead." But successful May, Cameron said helium was "looking astatine immoderate caller technologies" to effort and get Avatar 4 and 5 made "in fractional the clip for two-thirds of the cost," thing that would request to instrumentality a twelvemonth conscionable to fig it out.

Disney has presently scheduled tentative merchandise dates of December 21, 2029 for Avatar 4 and December 19, 2031 for Avatar 5 — but, again, these are conscionable placeholders until plans are made concrete.

Image credit: Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for National Geographic

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social