The special effects-heavy Avatar films cost a huge amount of money to produce, but they have historically made billions of dollars at the box office. Avatar 1 remains the highest-grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation), and has earned a staggering $2.9 billion across several theatrical runs. Avatar: The Way of Water<\/a> earned $2.3 billion, meanwhile, cementing it as the third-highest grossing film of all time \u2014 just ahead of Cameron’s own Titanic.<\/p>\n Avatar 4 currently has a December 21, 2029 release date, with Avatar 5 due out December 19, 2031. Cameron, now 71, would be close to 80 years old by the time it all wraps up.<\/p>\n Now, speaking to Entertainment Weekly<\/a>, Cameron sounded further words of caution about continuing the franchise, despite the fact Disney has set release dates for Avatar 4 and 5. And he revealed his plan if Fire and Ash flops \u2014 in Disney\u2019s eyes, of course.<\/p>\n “If we don’t get to make 4 and 5, for whatever reason, I’ll hold a press conference and I’ll tell you what we were gonna do. How’s that?” he said.<\/p>\n Every James Cameron Movie Ranked An alternative is to write Avatar novels, going into significant detail on the world and telling the stories of the sequels. “There’s so much culture and backstory and lateral detail in these characters that’s been worked out,\u201d he said. \u201cI’d love to do something that’s at that level of granular detail.”<\/p>\n However, \u201cthere’s no business model for it anymore. People aren’t reading. But anyway, it might be good to have the canonical record of what it was all supposed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n According to EW, that\u2019s a reference to recent research from the University of Florida and University College London that states the proportion of people reading for pleasure daily in the United States has declined by more than 40% over the last 20 years.<\/p>\n These comments from Cameron echo those he made in the run up to Fire and Ash\u2019s release, when he admitted he was feeling nervous about the film\u2019s box office performance and expressed concern about the \u201cforces\u201d working against theatrical releases in 2025.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n