James Cameron Puts It on the Record: Press Conference If Avatar 4 and 5 Don’t Happen
The saga’s future is up in the air—but a key figure is already pushing for another chapter.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is already a monster hit, and James Cameron is... weirdly chill about it. The threequel has cleared the half-billion mark worldwide at the time I am writing this (via The Numbers), and yeah, it will almost certainly keep inching up. But Cameron is not exactly spiking the football when it comes to the franchise’s future.
Where things stand
- The plan has long been to make at least five Avatar movies. That has been the drumbeat for years.
- Way back in 2022, Cameron was already teasing a fifth movie that would take the Na’vi to Earth. So the roadmap is not vague.
- Fire and Ash is the third film. If it does not match the box office of the first two, Cameron is clearly preparing for a different path forward.
- For now, the movie has earned over $500 million worldwide, per The Numbers, and is still climbing.
Cameron’s read on the future
Asked by Entertainment Weekly about how far this story actually goes, Cameron did not overpromise.
"I don't know if the saga goes beyond this point," he said. "I hope it does."
If 4 and 5 do not get made...
...Cameron has an answer ready. And it is delightfully blunt:
"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."
That is a bold move: publicly laying out the endgame rather than leaving fans hanging. Also, considering how much worldbuilding he has stacked up, that press conference could run longer than some movies.
Plan B: put it on the page
Cameron also floated a print route if the films stall out. He sounds almost eager to go longform with the lore:
"There's so much culture and backstory and lateral detail in these characters that's been worked out. I'd love to do something that's at that level of granular detail."
Then he turns pragmatic about, well, readers:
"There’s no business model for it anymore. People aren't reading."
That last part is debatable, but a Cameron-penned deep dive into Pandora’s history and future is the kind of book people would absolutely pick up. Bottom line: Fire and Ash is performing, the five-film plan is still the goal, and if the money does not justify more movies, Cameron is prepared to either tell all in a room full of press or put it in a book. Either way, he is not keeping the ending to himself.