James Cameron has shared an update on the future of Avatar following the 2025 release of Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third instalment in the franchise. Grossing over $1.48 billion at the global box office, Avatar: Fire and Ash underperformed compared with earlier entries in the series, with Avatar: The Way of Water earning $2.3 billion, and Avatar reaching $2.9 billion.
Despite being the lowest-performing instalment at the box office, the third film was still a global success, grossing well above its estimated $350-400 million budget.
Speaking during a press conference at the Saturn Awards, the director opened up on whether a fourth film in the franchise would get made, saying it was “likely” (via Screen Rant).
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Asked by a reporter if he would make any changes to the fourth instalment now that he had received feedback on Fire and Ash, Cameron said: “Absolutely.”
He added: “To perfectly be clear, we haven’t even made a decision to move forward. But should I do that – which I will say is likely, but not 100% – we will definitely learn from the lessons of all three films.”
Touching on what changes he’d like to make in the next movie, Cameron said he wanted to expand on Oona Chaplin’s character Varang, the leader of the Na’vi clan known as the Ash People.
He said: “From Fire and Ash, Varang may need to be written up a little bit moving forward. She kind of just took her place amongst all the others, because there are a lot of characters and plates spinning in the story. So, yeah, we might want to make her a little more [prominent].”
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He continued: “But that’s good. That’s a good problem to have when people are really responding to an element.
“In The Way of Water, people really responded resoundingly to Payakan. He was literally the highest-rated character in the film. I didn’t tell the actors that. But it’s like, ‘I guess we better put Payakan into Fire and Ash.’ You learn as you go forward. It’s evolving.”
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Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.