DESPITE coming out last month, Avatar: The Way of Water has continued to dominate the box office.
Having basically wiped the floor with any other competition in theatres during the month (and even the year’s previous big juggernaut, Top Gun Maverick), the film has also taken down Jurassic World as the seventh-highest grossing film in history with US$1.7 billion (RM7.5 billion).
Eventually, it will surpass the US$2 billion (RM8.8 billion) mark, and that means James Cameron’s grand ambitions for the science fantasy series will play out in full.
The only five movies in history to surpass the US$2 billion mark are Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, Titanic, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Avengers: Infinity War. For anyone keeping score, Cameron has directed two of those five movies.
On Who’s Taking to Chris Walker, Cameron appeared as a guest and said he’s prepared to make Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 into reality.
“It looks like I can’t wiggle out of this, I’m gonna have to do these other sequels,” joked Cameron.
He added that he expects some meeting with Disney in the near future regarding Avatar 3.
“I know what I’m going to be doing the next six or seven years.”
Both Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 are written, continued Cameron, and like with the third movie, some of Avatar 4‘s footage has already been shot to avoid the younger actors visibly ageing up between films.
Recently, Cameron revealed that Avatar 3 – which will release next year – will include the Ash people, the franchise’s first Na’vi villains that reside in Pandora’s volcanic region.
Producer Jon Landau has also talked about using Avatar 5 as a reason to take the series to Earth, so the Sully clan, and Zoe Saladana’s Neytiri in particular, can see how the planet’s faring.
Unless something really goes wrong, and if Cameron can’t find another director to eventually pass the baton off to, it looks like the franchise will keep on keeping on.
“We’ve begun a franchise at this point. We’ve begun a saga that can now play out over multiple films,” Cameron said