James Cameron Says AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER Will Break Even, Paving the Way for Future Sequels
Director James Cameron has an ambitious task ahead of him, making the third, fourth and fifth movies in the Avatar franchise, after his recently released sequel Avatar: The Way of Water. Coming out 14 years after the first Avatar film, the future of the franchise is resting on this sequel pulling out a box office record just to break even and make the next films possible. Cameron said just a couple of months ago that the sequels would only get made if this film proved that people still “give a shit.”
Cameron told GQ Magazine back in November that the sequel would need to be the third or fourth highest-grossing movie in history just to “break even.” Those pics all grossed over $2 billion worldwide. Now Cameron has sat down with Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace to chat about the numbers and factors going forward, saying:
“I never actually gave it a number. I said it would has to be among the highest-grossing films in history and somebody else applied that number and it got picked up. The number is actually less.”
Avatar: The Way of Water stands at $1.54 billion worldwide, having just passed Top Gun: Maverick as the top-grossing release of 2022. It’s also the ninth grossing movie ever and the second top grossing film of the pandemic after Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.9 billion).
Cameron went on:
“It looks like with the momentum that the film has now that we’ll easily pass our break even in the next few days, so it looks like I can’t wiggle out of this and I’m gonna have to do these other sequels. I know what I’m going to be doing the next six or seven years.”
Cameron also said about the sequel’s break even:
“The point is we’re going to be okay. I’m sure that we’ll have a discussion soon with with the top folks at Disney about the game plan going forward for Avatar 3, which is already in the can – we’ve already captured and photographed the whole film so we’re in extended post-production to do all that CG magic. And then Avatar 4 and 5 are both written. We even have some of 4 in the can. We’ve begun a franchise at this point. We’ve begun a saga that can now play out over multiple films.”
Avatar 3 is currently scheduled for release on Dec. 20, 2024, Avatar 4 on Dec. 18, 2026, and Avatar 5 on Dec. 22, 2028. Are you looking forward to the future films in the franchise?
via: Deadline