I Asked James Cameron How Ready He Is To Shoot Avatar 4 & 5, And He Hinted At Other Ideas In The Works: ‘I Can’t Plan The Next 25 Years’

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With the upcoming release of Avatar: Fire and Ash in 2025, everyone is curious about the future of the Avatar franchise. While Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 are already scheduled for 2029 and 2031, I recently asked James Cameron, the creator of the world of Pandora, about his current plans for the sequels leading up to Fire and Ash.

Creating Avatar: The Way of Water and Fire and Ash was a long and complex undertaking, starting more than ten years ago after the first Avatar film became a hit in 2009. Filming lasted from 2017 to 2020, and The Way of Water finally premiered in 2022. With Fire and Ash now complete and shown to audiences, director James Cameron shared his excitement about continuing the Avatar story.

I feel creatively prepared to move forward. However, we first need to see how well the film performs and gauge audience interest. If it’s successful, we can then start discussing the practicalities of production, like scheduling and staging.

Whether the new Avatar movie succeeds depends on how audiences respond this holiday season, as is typical in the film industry. Early predictions (from Deadline) suggest it could have a very strong opening weekend, potentially earning between $100 and $130 million domestically. However, it remains to be seen if viewers will continue to be excited about returning to the world of Pandora.

The recent Avatar films have proven incredibly successful, earning a combined $5.2 billion globally – and people are still willing to pay extra to experience them in 3D. However, while James Cameron is waiting to see how well the next film, Fire and Ash, performs, he also shared something with me:

I have a few smaller projects I’d like to work on, and I’m deciding whether to fit them in between larger ones or tackle them all at once. It’s just me thinking about all the things I want to create. Plus, at 71, I can’t really plan too far ahead – maybe 20 years, if that. We’ll see how it goes.

James Cameron remains a highly ambitious director, and he’s still incredibly enthusiastic about his upcoming projects. He’s currently juggling plans for two more Avatar films alongside other creative ideas. Recently, he collaborated with Billie Eilish to create a 3D theatrical version of her concert, set to release this spring. He’s also been developing a new Terminator movie, for which he says he has plenty of ideas already.

James Cameron’s Avatar films are always incredibly difficult to make, especially because he films actors’ movements underwater using motion capture technology. While it’s still uncertain what obstacles will arise for the fourth and fifth movies if they’re made, the success of The Way of Water and the planned Fire and Ash might give those projects some extra push forward.

It’s obvious that getting the audience to root for the characters is key, and that’s especially true as we anticipate the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash on December 19th.

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2025-12-07 02:14