James Cameron moving ahead with more Avatar sequels

James Cameron has done it again! Avatar: The Way of Water has become a huge hit at the box office, raking in over $1.7 billion around the world as of this writing.

But that wasn’t a sure thing. After all, it had been 13 years since the original Avatar movie came out. And then a worldwide pandemic depressed the box office, so there were many “what ifs” going into this sequel.

But we worried for naught. The Way of Water has surpassed Top Gun: Maverick as the highest-grossing movie to release in 2022, and its success only continues to grow. And with that success, Cameron is ready to commit to even more Avatar sequels.

James Cameron says he will be making more Avatar sequels

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cameron was on an episode of HBO Max’s Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? and spoke about the future of the Na’vi and Pandora. “It looks like just with the momentum that the film has now that will easily pass our break even in the next few days, so it looks like I can’t wiggle out of this, I’m gonna have to do these other sequels,” the director said. “I know what I’m going to be doing the next six or seven years.”

The Way of Water had a budget of around $250 million, not counting marketing. That’s steep, but with the movie logging nearly $2 billion in the bank, profit is assured. “The point is we’re going to be okay,” Cameron said “I’m sure that we’ll have a discussion soon with the top folks at Disney about the game plan going forward for Avatar 3, which is already in the can–we’ve already captured and photographed the whole film so we’re in extended post-production to do all that CG magic. And then Avatar 4 and 5 are both written. We even have some of 4 in the can. We’ve begun a franchise at this point. We’ve begun a saga that can now play out over multiple films.”

So, basically, we’re definitely getting more Avatar movies, where before we were only probably getting more Avatar movies. The next one is due out on December 20, 2024.

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h/t AV Club