Disney/20th Century Studios
- James Cameron says that “The Way of Water” is successful enough to make the next three “Avatar” movies.
- He’d previously suggested the fate of “Avatar” 4 and 5 relied on the box office of “The Way of Water.”
- The movies are currently scheduled for release in 2024, 2026, and 2028.
Prepare for a lot more “Avatar.”
The sequel to the 2009 hit, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” is currently taking the box office by storm, surpassing “Top Gun: Maverick” this week to be the biggest 2022 release at the worldwide box office with $1.5 billion.
It’s now the No. 9 movie of all time after three weeks (the original “Avatar” is the No. 1 movie ever, with $2.9 billion globally).
Director James Cameron says it’s enough to guarantee those planned third, fourth, and fifth installments get made and released.
“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,” Cameron said on the latest episode of HBO Max’s “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?”
“I’m gonna have to do these other sequels,” Cameron said. “I know what I’m going to be doing the next six or seven years. The point is we’re going to be okay.”
Cameron had previously said that “Avatar 3” was already filmed and pretty much guaranteed to be released. But he’s also suggested that the fate of the fourth and fifth installments in the franchise rested on the success of “The Way of Water.”
The next three movies are expected to be released in 2024, 2026, and 2028.
Cameron has said that he would be open to another filmmaker directing the fourth and fifth movies. He told Empire Magazine in April 2022 that they are “all-consuming.”
He also said in November that he has ideas for a sixth and seventh entry, but that he might “have to train somebody else” to make them, he told The Hollywood Reporter.
But Cameron is likely to be heavily involved in the franchise no matter what role he plays in future movies, and had already written the scripts for 4 and 5 before filming began on “The Way of Water.”
Cameron has already turned in his treatment for the fourth movie, which he said was the only one to not receive any studio notes.
“I can’t tell you the details, but all I can say is that when I turned in the script for [‘The Way of Water’], the studio gave me three pages of notes,” Cameron told Collider. “And when I turned in the script for 3, they gave me a page of notes, so I was getting better.”
“When I turned in the script for 4, the studio executive, the creative executive over the films, wrote me an email that said, ‘Holy fuck,'” Cameron added. “And I said, ‘Well, where are the notes?’ And she said, ‘Those are the notes.’ Because it kind of goes nuts in a good way, right?”
