Avatar: The Way of Water is proving extremely successful, dominating the worldwide box office. Earlier this year, the critically acclaimed sequel broke the top 15 highest-grossing films at $1.37 billion.
In a recent episode of HBO Max’ Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? the director highlighted that the heavily budgeted sequel has surpassed $1.5 billion at the global box office, officially overtaking Top Gun: Maverick as the highest-grossing film released in 2022. It seems the studio’s bet on James Cameron looks extremely profitable, as the director says the film is on track to “easily” break even at the box office. Against this background, the success sets the course for the production of further sequels.
Speaking to Cameron, he said: “It looks like with the momentum it has now the film will easily survive our break-even point in the next few days, so it looks like I’m not getting out of there, I will gotta do those other sequels.” The director is speaking to Avatar 4 and 5 as Avatar 3 is due out as early as 2024. He adds:
“I know what I’m going to do for the next six or seven years. The point is that we’re going to be fine. I’m sure we’ll soon be having a discussion with the top folks at Disney about the game plan for the future of Avatar 3, which is already in the can – we’ve already taped and photographed the whole film, so we’re in the expanded one Post production to do all this CG magic. And then Avatar 4 and 5 are both written. We even have some of 4 in the can. We started a franchise at that point. We have started a saga that can now span multiple films.
Cameron also clarified that rumors that the second film would have to make at least $2 billion were just a rumor: “To be clear, I never actually gave it a number – someone else put that number in and it was picked up. The number is actually lower. In another recent interview with French newspaper 20 Minutes, IndieWire reported that in Avatar 3, Cameron will introduce a new Na’vi clan themed around fire. “The fire is represented by the ‘Ash People’. I want to show the Na’vi from a different angle because I’ve only shown their good sides so far. In the early films there are very negative human examples and very positive Na’vi examples. In Avatar 3 we will do the opposite. We will also explore new worlds while continuing the story of the main characters. I can say that the last parts will be the best. The others were an introduction, a way to set the table before the food was served.
Barring any delays, Avatar 3 will be released on December 20, 2024.
In other entertainment news, Benedict Cumberbatch will be starring in the new Netflix limited series entitled Eric.