James Cameron and His AVATAR Stars Measure the Success of Each Film by One Metric: Making the Audience Cry

Director James Cameron has been pretty singularly focused on his Avatar franchise over the past nearly two decades. The first film came out in 2009, and fans waited 13 years to see the second film, Avatar: The Way of Water (2022).

With the third film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, in post-production and awaiting its December 19, 2025 release, Cameron has revealed that he has already shot the fourth film, which is due out in 2029, and he and his cast and crew are working on Avatar 5, which is looking at a 2031 release date.

Cameron has gone all in on this world, and has even developed new technology to bring the movies to life. But once the films are released, the director says he has one objective for fans, and that is to bring them to tears.

James Cameron directed the 1997 phenomenon of a film Titanic, and that has gone down as a top tear-jerker for fans, so he knows the formula. During an interview with People at Disney’s D23 convention earlier this month, Cameron talked about the process of making a heartfelt film with each installment in the franchise, saying:

"The hardest part of the job is to live with every image every day and its [new] detail, but still be able to feel how the movie [affects] you as an audience member.

If I can't cry in the movie, I know I've failed seriously, and if I don't, there's something wrong. It has to be fixed."

The three-time Oscar winner went on to admit that he "had that crisis of faith on Avatar 3 at one point in an early cut," when he thought, "'We're not there.'" And after they "did some additional work," Cameron told the magazine, "It's banging now. Absolutely interesting."

Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña, who star in the Avatar films, also spoke with the outlet at D23, where Worthington said, "It's not about what you see ... it's about how you feel."

Added Saldaña, "I share the same feeling with the audience, because it's not easy for me to watch things that I'm a part of, but for some reason when I watch Avatar, I do have an out-of-body experience where I'm watching it as if I was never a part of it, or I'm watching it as if I'm there. The second one, the feeling is so deep," she said.

Saldaña went on to explain that "honoring that process" of evolution and fine-tuning the films has been important to their success.

"I feel like that's what separates a film that is good and a film that is great. A story that just lives forever is when you honor that process.

We sort of go, 'We're not yet there. We're not going to listen to the formula and the deadlines and the budgets and the, 'We have to do it like this because everybody else is doing it like this.' No, no, no.

You have to really stay focused and shut down all that noise and just live with the story, and that takes a great deal of concentration."

Worthington added, "I know when the boss calls and says, 'Hey, I need you to come in,' he's missing something. It's about making it better, making it stronger, making it deeper. So just turn up."

Avatar: Fire and Ash is slated to hit theaters on Dec. 19, 2025.