James Cameron recently made waves when he acknowledged that he’d be willing to walk away from the Avatar franchise if the new film Avatar: Fire and Ash isn’t a box office smash — and the cast and crew reacted to those comments at the Los Angeles premiere on Monday.
Despite planning fourth and fifth films in the franchise, Cameron spoke on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast about “sequelitis” and how fewer people are now going to theaters than when he began the Avatar journey two decades ago — despite both the 2009 original and 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water being two of the biggest box office earners of all time. The filmmaker said each film costs “one metric fuck-ton of money, which means we have to make two metric fuck-tons of money to make a profit. I have no doubt in my mind that this movie will make money; the question is does it make enough money to do it again?” Cameron added he was “absolutely” willing to walk away if it didn’t, and “if this is where it ends, cool.”
Sam Worthington, who, along with Zoe Saldaña serves as the franchise’s lead, told The Hollywood Reporter of Avatar‘s future, “I think Jim’s right; you’re after a movie that your hope is that it connects, and it’s very nerve-racking when you hand a movie over. We’ll see. [His character] Jake Sully said at the end of Avatar 2, ‘This is where we make our stand,’ so I think we know what’s coming. To me, this was always the final battle, the final showdown.”
The star added, “I know Jim has ideas for where the saga continues but I also know that he’s kind of rounded off these two movies; they were one movie when he first wrote it and I think his intention was to finish this one with everything he’s got and see how it goes.”
Miley Cyrus, Cliff Curtis, Oona Castilla Chaplin, Britain Dalton, Stephen Lang, Jack Champion, Sigourney Weaver, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Sam Worthington, Bailey Bass, Zoe Saldaña, Jamie Flatters and James Cameron onstage at the L.A. premiere.
Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for 20th Century Studios
Stephen Lang, who returns once again as the story’s villain, emphasized that he doesn’t think this is the end, saying, “There’s so much more saga to tell and I know how deeply invested Jim Cameron is in this story and these families that are in this film. I think there can be a break, but we’ve done that before; we’ve taken long breaks. But in the words of a great, great American, we’ll be back,” he said with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent.
Cameron, however, was busy soaking up Fire and Ash at the premiere, teasing, “I’m not even thinking about four and five, are you kidding me? I’m unemployed right now. Ask me in a year, we’ll talk about it.”
The scripts for the fourth and fifth films are written, though, and parts of the fourth movie were shot as they worked on The Way of Water and Fire and Ash. Jack Champion, who plays Worthington’s son, noted, “We filmed a lot of prequel scenes and I just hope that audiences get to see them because they are crazy,” adding with his fingers crossed, “I really hope that we get to make them.”
Avatar: Fire and Ash hits theaters Dec. 19.
Tiffany Taylor contributed to this report.
