Following the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash, fans of the franchise are wondering if creator James Cameron will get to realize his ambition of following it up with Avatar 4 and 5. While the legendary writer and director has yet to confirm either movie is 100% happening, an Avatar producer sounds convinced both are on the way.
Speaking to Inverse, Avatar producer Rae Sanchini said Avatar 4 and 5 in the planning phase as we speak.
“Right now we’re figuring out the schedule,” she said. “We’re working hard on it right now, budgeting, scheduling, planning, building out our new pipeline for them. As far as we’re concerned, we’re full speed ahead.”
The special effects-heavy Avatar films cost a huge amount of money to produce, but they have historically made billions of dollars at the box office. 2009’s Avatar 1 remains the highest-grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation), and has earned a staggering $2.9 billion across several theatrical runs. 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water has earned $2.3 billion, meanwhile, cementing its place as the third-highest grossing film of all time.
Avatar: Fire and Ash, however, made $1.5 billion during its theatrical run. While that’s a huge amount for any movie, it’s some way behind its predecessors. So, has Fire and Ash done well enough to convince Disney to greenlight Avatar 4 and 5? Disney has given both sequels release dates already: Avatar 4 currently has a December 21, 2029 release date, with Avatar 5 due out December 19, 2031. Cameron, now 71, would be close to 80 years old by the time it all wraps up.
According to Rae Sanchini, both those release dates are “tentative,” although she intends to solidify the schedule “in the not too distant future.”
“We have the scripts, they’re brilliant,” she continued. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re heading forward.”
Cameron recently said Avatar 3 would need to make a lot of money, and he’d need to figure out a way to make Avatar 4 and 5 for less money in order to get the thumbs up from Disney. “Here’s the thing: the movie industry is depressed right now. Avatar 3 cost a lot of money. We have to do well in order to continue. We have to do well and we need to figure out how to make Avatar movies more inexpensively in order to continue,” he said. “If we continue and we do 4, we also do 4 and 5 together. So we made 2 and 3 together, one big story. And then 4 and 5 is another big story.”
Cameron’s comments echoed those he made in the run up to Fire and Ash’s release, when he admitted he was feeling nervous about the film’s box office performance and expressed concern about the “forces” working against theatrical releases in 2025. Speaking on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast, Cameron said there was potential for “sequelitis.”
“People tend to dismiss sequels unless it’s the third Lord of the Rings film and you want to see what happens to everybody, which in my mind this is — this is the culmination of a story arc, but that may not be how the public sees it,” he said. And there’s the “one-two punch” of streaming and Covid, which means fewer people are going to the movies — 75% of the number in 2019, Cameron suggested.
When pressed on how much Avatar: Fire and Ash cost to make, Cameron wouldn’t be drawn into divulging a figure, only suggesting it was a lot of money, and so the movie will have to make a lot of money to turn a profit.
“It is one metric f**k ton of money, which means we have to make two metric f**k tons of money to make a profit,” he said. “I have no doubt in my mind that this movie will make money. The question is, does it make enough money to justify doing it again?”
And on that point, Cameron admitted he was “absolutely” ready to walk away from Avatar if Fire and Ash flops. “I’ve been in Avatar land for 20 years,” he said. “Actually 30 years because I wrote it in ‘95, but I wasn’t working continuously on it for those first 10 years. Yeah, absolutely, sure. If this is where it ends, cool.” But what about open story threads? “There’s one open thread. I’ll write a book!” Cameron responded.
Disney had used Avengers: Doomsday teaser trailers (which, apparently, are neither teasers nor trailers) to encourage repeat viewings of Avatar: Fire and Ash in theaters.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
