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At last report about a month ago, filmmaker James Cameron indicated that Disney appeared to want to move forward with fourth and fifth “Avatar” films after all, but a decision hadn’t been made yet.
The only reason for hesitation appeared to come down to money – namely, the cost of the films and the box-office.
With the most recent film having earned half that of the first film, even with ticket price rises since 2009, the studio seems reluctant to proceed unless the next films can be made much more cost-effectively.
Now, in a new interview on the Empire podcast (via World of Reel), Cameron says plans for the next two films are still very much uncertain at this time. He says “Avatar 4 and 5 are still floating out there” and that he’s on a new writing and development phase of the project.
However, his big challenge at the moment is changing the far too costly and time-consuming behind-the-scenes process. He says it could take as long as “a year or so” to figure out how to make future films in the series “in half the time for two-thirds of the cost”.
Last year’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” pulled in $1.49 billion worldwide, a still huge amount by any film’s standards but notably softer the prior ones. With budgets of the films reportedly exceeding $400 million each, the profit margin on these movies is becoming much thinner.
While Disney has two more “Avatar” instalments scheduled for 2029 and 2031, there is no contractual obligation for them to proceed with making them.
The post James Cameron: “Avatar 4” Fate Still Unclear appeared first on Dark Horizons.
