Before Avatar: The Way of Water came out, director James Cameron made peace with the idea of ending the series before five films, as he planned. “The market could be telling us we’re done in three months, or we might be semi-done, meaning, ‘OK, let’s complete the story within movie three, and not go on endlessly,’ if it’s just not profitable,” he told Total Film, adding, “The question is: how many people give a sh*t now?”
The answer: a lot. Avatar: The Way of Water has grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide, making it not only the highest-grossing movie of 2022, but also the 10th highest-grossing movie ever. Not bad for an endlessly delayed sequel to a film that supposedly left no cultural impact. Cameron is now locked into the finishing the series.
“t looks like just with the momentum that the film has now that will easily pass our breakeven in the next few days, actually, so so it looks like I can’t wiggle out of this, I’m gonna have to do these other these other sequels,” he said on this week’s episode of HBO’s Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?. Cameron expects to have a conversation with the “top folks” at Disney about the future of the franchise soon.
“[Avatar 3] is already in the can — we’ve already captured and photographed the whole film. And then Avatar 4 and 5 are both written; we even have some of 4 in the can. So you know, I think we can see that that I think we’ve begun a franchise at this point.”
Avatar: The Way of Water is a lot of fun, but I do have one complaint: I didn’t sh*t myself with my mouth wide open. Maybe Cameron is saving that for the fourth movie.
Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? is available on HBO Max.