With the release of “Avatar: The Way of Water” just a couple of weeks away, folks are now starting to look ahead at what comes next for James Cameron’s franchise. Will the ‘Way of Water’ box office explode like the original film, leading to Disney laughing all the way to the bank and Cameron continuing his epic quest to make three more ‘Avatar’ films? Or will the sequel underperform, resulting in the studio and the acclaimed filmmaker scrambling to figure out what to do with the rest of the planned films? Though he’s obviously hoping for the best, James Cameron understands the financial expectations involved with making a sequel to the highest-grossing film of all time, and he does have a plan one way or another.
Speaking to THR, James Cameron talked about the future of the “Avatar” franchise. He’s not ready to count his chickens before they hatch, per se, but he does have a plan for if ‘The Way of Water’ doesn’t perform well. But if the demand is so great that Disney approaches him for even more sequels past ‘Avatar 5?’ Well, that’s a much more difficult question.
“We’ll probably finish [‘Avatar 3’] regardless because it’s all shot,” Cameron explained. “We’d have to really crater for it not to seem like it was worth the additional investment. We’d have to leave a smoking hole in the ground. Now, hopefully, we get to tell the whole thing because five’s better than four, four’s better than three, and three’s better than two.”
As of now, due to the odd demands of an ‘Avatar’ film production and the technology used, Cameron has already done all of the principal photography for the third film as well as quite a bit of ‘Avatar 4.’ So, he’s right—it’s highly unlikely Disney would bail on the third film since so much of the money has already been spent.
But that’s all negativity, right? What if ‘The Way of Water’ is a runaway success, much like the original, and everyone involved is incredibly excited about the future of the franchise past ‘Avatar 5,’ which is already planned? That’s when things get a bit murkier.
“Obviously, I’m not going to be able to make ‘Avatar’ movies indefinitely, the amount of energy required,” explained the filmmaker. “I would have to train somebody how to do this because, I don’t care how smart you are as a director, you don’t know how to do this.”
Ok, if more films aren’t in the plans, what about expanding the franchise into other avenues? Cameron has already worked on an ‘Avatar’ graphic novel which comes out next week, and tells a brand-new story. Perhaps, there’s room for a TV show on Disney+?
“The problem with these CG characters is that they’re so cost- and labor-intensive that it really doesn’t work for TV,” explained Cameron. “Now, come back in 10 years, with a lot of machine deep learning. Insert it into our pipeline, which we hope to do, over time. We might be able to get to a TV schedule, but it doesn’t interest me right now.”
First things first, for any of these possibilities to happen, “Avatar: The Way of Water” needs to be a huge hit when it arrives in theaters on December 16. If that happens, you can definitely expect quite a bit of blue alien goodness coming from Cameron over the next several years.