It sounded like a statement like so many others for James Cameron commenting on the box office forecasts Avatar: The Way of Water. But it wasn’t that at all: did he really say that if the film fails, the four-sequel plan will have to be blocked until 2028? It seems like this would stop it.
Said by JamesCameron, such a sentence can destabilize, almost pass under your nose. Because since we started talking about such an extensive and lengthy plan for the Avatar sequels, we hadn’t heard of Cameron on the scales the unknown of the box office. In other words, while most franchises are at least waiting for the proceeds of a first sequel (especially after 13 years) to decide whether to continue the saga, James Cameron seems to have gone down that route it completely released him from that bondage.
The intuition of Rotate the four sequels one by one – one set to be released every 2 years through 2028 – actually allowed him to complete much of the production work before the first box office test. While it’s true that Avatar has always taken a lot longer to post-produce than any other title, that’s true Once turned around, it would be too late to turn back. And at that point, flop or not, it would make more sense to add some post-production work and still distribute all four sequels.
That sounded like the argument, but a snippet of an interview with Total Film overshadows it, it seems tell us something else. The one where Cameron says, “Within three months [di botteghino], the market can now tell us if we are at the end or almost at the end. Which would mean: ‘Okay, We end the story with the third film and don’t go on forever‘. If it’s not that profitable…“. Of course, Cameron concludes the statement by stating that he is sure that “we will remind people why it makes sense to return to the cinema. This film certainly does”. But according to the previous passage will the plan of four sequels actually checked at the box office.
Also thanks a Clarification by Jon Landau to Variety, who explained the true terms of this sequential plan. The producer made it clear that only Avatar 2 and 3 were finished at this point they would not have gotten the green light for Avatar 4 yet, but they still decided to shoot the first act “for logistical reasons”. Hence the confusion and the fact that the final two films of this pentalogy are still up in the air. And in the face of a possible flop – or in any case, unfulfilled expectations for Disney, since the estimates are already calling Avatar 2 a loser to Top Gun 2 – this already filmed first act of Avatar 4 would surely be annihilated.
So get to the cinema December 14thunless you want Cameron risking his life in the Mariana Trench again.