James Cameron has been quite open about the importance of how profitable Avatar: The Way of Water will be. While he mapped out up to five sequels, if the franchise doesn’t prove financially stable for Disney, the new owner of 20th Century, there’s no point for them to invest upwards of $400M per entry moving forward. Luckily, the film has had some truly impressive legs throughout the Holiday season and in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, director James Cameron confirmed the film will be profitable in the “next few days.”
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.
James Cameron
He does slightly reluctantly share that he will be quite busy for the next few years. Avatar 3 has already finished filming and they are working on bringing the world to life CG-wise. He also confirms that the fourth and fifth entries are already written as well.
I know what I’m going to be doing the next six or seven years. The point is we’re going to be okay. 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.
James Cameron
It certainly sounds like the director will be quite busy in the next few years, but he does love the franchise. He’s also talked about expanding Avatar in multiple ways and even with a new director taking over when he eventually no longer can. So, if it remains as profitable, we’ll see a lot more of Avatar in the future of our cinemas.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
