Massive Budget for AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH Revealed, Though Some Wonder If the Fans and Nominations Will Continue Waning

When the first Avatar movie came out in 2009, it astounded viewers with its beauty and innovative new technology that was used to bring the movie to life.

That movie garnered nine Oscar nominations, including best picture and director, and it went on to win three- for cinematography, art direction and visual effects.

Fans had to wait over a decade for the second film, Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), and this movie was met with much less fanfare. The sequel received four nods (for best picture and in three technical categories), and won just one, again for visual effects.

This threequel, Avatar: Fire and Ash, will open this month on the 19th, and early reactions have described the film as “unfathomably epic,” but “exhausting,” and “repetitive.”

Variety reports that the trajectory of the franchise is clearly downward, despite the film’s reported $400 million-plus budget. For the film series to continue with director James Cameron’s planned fourth and fifth films, obligations mean this third movie needs to be a four-quadrant blockbuster first, and an Oscar contender second.

While we still have approximately a month to wait for Academy Award nominations to be released, Golden Globe nominees were released this week, and Avatar: Fire and Ash only received two nods- one for the new Cinematic & Box Office Achievement award and one for Best Original Song for "Dream as One," by Miley Cyrus.

Cameron has his head down, focusing on building a five-film saga that prioritizes technological legacy over trophies, but how well this third film does is a reality that shapes how voters will receive his movie, and the future films under the Avatar name.