20th Century Studios
After a decade-plus of planning and promising five Avatar films, iconic director James Cameron is now hinting that the plug could be pulled on the franchise after Avatar 3 if The Way of the Water — which finally hits theaters on December 16 — doesn’t perform at the box office.
While the comments mark a stunning macro reversal from Cameron, this isn’t the first time that the 68-year-old filmmaker has expressed concern that the world has passed Avatar by.
“I was a little concerned that I had stretched the tether too far, in our fast-paced, modern world, with ‘Avatar 2’ coming in 12 years later,” Cameron told The New York Times earlier this year.
“Right until we dropped the teaser trailer, and we got 148 million views in 24 hours. There’s that scarce seen but wondered at principle, which is, ‘Wow, we haven’t seen that in a long time, but I remember how cool it was back then.’ Does that play in our favor? I don’t know. I guess we’re going to find out.”
James Cameron says that the Avatar franchise could end after the third movie if the upcoming sequel doesn’t perform well
Now, with the release of The Way of the Water about a month away, Cameron is again publicly voicing his doubts about whether or not the franchise still has the same cache.
“The market could be telling us we’re done in three months, or we might be semi-done, meaning: ‘Okay, let’s complete the story within movie three, and not go on endlessly,’ if it’s just not profitable. We’re in a different world now than we were when I wrote this stuff, even. It’s the one-two punch – the pandemic and streaming,” Cameron told Total Film.
Joining original Avatar stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, and Sigourney Weaver for The Way of the Water will be the likes of Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Michelle Yeoh, Brendan Cowell, Oona Chaplin, CJ Jones, and Vin Diesel.
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