James Cameron, known for his extravagant films (with equally extravagant budgets), wants to take an interesting approach for the final Avatar films.
In an appearance on The Empire Film Podcast to promote his new Billie Eilish tour documentary Hit Me Hard And Soft: The Tour (Live In 3D), Cameron gave the world an update on the final two films in the Avatar series. He claimed that they are “still floating out there,” but in order to make them happen, some changes to his procedure need to occur.
“We’re gonna be looking at some new technologies to try and do them more efficiently, because they’re hideously expensive and take a long time,” he said.
“I want to do them in half the time for two thirds of the cost, that’s my metric,” Cameron added. “And so, it’s going to take us a year or so to figure out how to do that. And in the meantime, I’ll be writing and probably be doing a couple of other things.”
Cameron’s Avatar films have been expensive and time-consuming, but they’ve also made massive amounts of money at the box office. His 2009 Avatar film became the highest-grossing movie of all time, earning $2.9 billion. Its sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, earned $2.3 billion altogether. The latest film in the series, 2025’s Avatar: Fire and Ash, made $1.49 billion.
It’s always been Cameron’s plan to make five Avatar films to complete the story he’s trying to tell about the alien world of Pandora and its inhabitants. But given that each movie is earning less than the one before, there are doubts about whether he’ll actually finish them.
Last year, Cameron suggested that he’d hold a press conference to reveal the plot points of the final two movies if Avatar: Fire and Ash didn’t do well enough in the box office to warrant a sequel.
“I don’t know if the saga goes beyond this point. I hope it does,” Cameron told Entertainment Weekly. “But, you know, we prove that business case every time we go out.”
“Here’s what it is,” he added. “If we don’t get to make 4 and 5, for whatever reason, I’ll hold a press conference, and I’ll tell you what we were gonna do. How’s that?”
