James Cameron says Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 are still “floating out there,” but he wants the next two films made in half the time for two thirds of the cost of Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water. The 3x Oscar winner said it will take about a year to figure out how to do that, even as he keeps working on other projects.
“We’re gonna be looking at some new technologies to try and do them more efficiently, because they’re hideously expensive and take a long time,” Cameron said. “I want to do them in half the time for two thirds of the cost, that’s my metric.”
That gives the latest update on a franchise that began with Avatar in 2009 and returned with The Way of Water in 2022, building into a $987M franchise that remains one of Hollywood’s most ambitious bets. Cameron has already filmed some scenes for Avatar 4, and he said the next step is to spend “a year or so” working out a more efficient route before he moves ahead.
“After that, I’m like Roadrunner going off a cliff,” he said, adding, “I’ll be doing some writing, I’ve got a number of projects I’m cooking.” The director also made clear he has not locked in the future of the saga. “I don’t know if the saga goes beyond this point. I hope it does. But, you know, we prove that business case every time we go out,” he said.
That business case has always been part of the story around Pandora. Cameron said there is no business model for novelizing the films anymore, underscoring how much the franchise now depends on each release performing on its own. He has also said before that if he decides not to continue the Avatar movies, he would hold a press conference to say so.
For now, he is trying to solve the same problem that has shadowed the series from the start: how to keep making giant films without spending giant time and giant money on each one. Cameron’s answer is not a farewell. It is a pause, a rethink, and a bet that the next two movies can be built faster and cheaper than the last two.
