{"id":113109,"date":"2025-08-27T06:15:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T06:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/113109\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T06:15:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T06:15:07","slug":"avatar-fire-and-ash-james-cameron-talks-future-of-the-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/113109\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’: James Cameron talks future of the series"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 James Cameron<\/a> recently turned 71 as he brought his third \u201cAvatar\u201d film, \u201cFire and Ash,\u201d to the finish line. <\/p>\n

Cameron first began developing \u201cAvatar\u201d more than 30 years ago. He started working on the first film in earnest 20 years ago. Production on \u201cFire and Ash,\u201d which ran concurrently with 2022\u2019s \u201cThe Way of Water,\u201d<\/a> got underway eight years ago. <\/p>\n

By any measure, \u201cAvatar\u201d is one of the largest undertakings ever by a filmmaker. It\u2019s maybe the only project that could make \u201cTitanic\u201d look like a modest one-off. Cameron has dedicated a huge chunk of his life to it. Now, as he prepares to unveil the latest chapter of his Na\u2019vi opus on Dec. 19, Cameron is approaching what he calls a crossroads. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs you get older you start to think of time in a slightly different way,\u201d Cameron says from his 5,000-acre organic farm in New Zealand. \u201cIt\u2019s not an infinite resource.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two more \u201cAvatar\u201d films are already written and have release dates, in 2029 and 2031. Right now, though, Cameron is focused on completing \u201cFire and Ash,\u201d<\/a> which is almost guaranteed to be the biggest movie of the fall. To get \u201cAvatar\u201d \u2014 a franchise already worth $5.2 billion in worldwide tickets sales \u2014 back in the minds of moviegoers, \u201cThe Way of Water\u201d will also be rereleased Oct. 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I told the brass at Disney, we\u2019re right at the glide slope to land right on time for delivery,\u201d Cameron says. \u201cThe first film was a nightmare. Movie two was hectic. But here, I keep having to pinch myself because it\u2019s all going well. The film is strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

There may be no filmmaker more at the nexus of past and future blockbuster making than Cameron. \u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash\u201d will arrive as Hollywood is reconciling itself to a new theatrical normal. In a movie industry of shrinking ambition, \u201cAvatar,\u201d an original spectacle that once was the wave of the future, is already beginning to look like an endangered species.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview, Cameron reflected on his history with \u201cAvatar\u201d and what\u2019s next for him, including a planned adaptation of Charles Pellegrino\u2019s \u201cGhosts of Hiroshima.\u201d For Cameron, most of his work is likely to touch on one of what he calls \u201cthe big three\u201d: Nuclear weapons, machine super intelligence and climate change. <\/p>\n

\u201cAvatar,\u201d a family saga that grows more complicated and darker in \u201cFire and Ash,\u201d relates to the latter. The films are environmental parables, set in a verdant faraway world. Sustainability, community, connection to nature \u2014 these are some of the pillars of Cameron\u2019s life right now, in the movies and outside them. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just a humble movie farmer,\u201d he says, smiling, \u201cwho\u2019s also a farmer farmer.\u201d <\/p>\n

AP: When you decided to embark on \u201cAvatar,\u201d was it more likely that if you didn\u2019t, you\u2019d spend your time mostly away from movies, doing deep sea exploration and other things?<\/p>\n

CAMERON: It was sort of: Do the \u201cAvatar\u201d saga or follow my interests more. I knew that \u201cAvatar\u201d would be all-consuming, and it has been. When I set down that path, a reasonable projection was eight to 10 years to get it all written and do movie two and movie three together and get them out. But it\u2019s actually turned out to be more than that. It was a major commitment and decision to make for me as a life choice. But the \u201cAvatar\u201d movies reach people and they reach people with positive messaging. Not just positive about the environment but positive from the standpoint of humanity, empathy, spirituality, our connection to each other. And they\u2019re beautiful. There\u2019s a kind of magnetic draw into the film. It almost feels like it\u2019s being pulled out of the audience\u2019s dreams and subconscious state.<\/p>\n

AP: \u201cAvatar\u201d began as a dream, didn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

CAMERON: I was 19. I was in college and I had a very vivid dream of a bioluminescent forest with glowing moss that reacted to your feet and these little spinning lizards that floated around. It\u2019s all in the movie, by the way. The reason it\u2019s in the movie is because I got up and painted it. That later became the inspiration, just a few years later, for a science-fiction script. I said, \u201cHey I got this idea for a planet where everything glows at night.\u201d We wrote that in and it never went away.<\/p>\n

Years after that, when I was the CEO of Digital Domain, I wanted to push Digital Domain to be able to create CG worlds, CG humanoid creatures using performance capture. I just threw the kitchen sink into the treatment called \u201cAvatar.\u201d So it came from almost a Machiavellian reason. I was trying to drive a business model for the development of CG. Of course, the answer I got from my technical team was: \u201cWe are not ready to make this film. We may not be ready for years.\u201d But it still served that inspirational purpose, which was: Well, how do we get ready?<\/p>\n

AP: \u201cGhosts of Hiroshima\u201d would be your first non-“Avatar\u201d feature as director since \u201cTitanic\u201d in 1997. What do you think when you hear that?<\/p>\n

CAMERON: It\u2019s interesting. As I said earlier, \u201cAvatar\u201d has been all-consuming. In the process, we\u2019ve developed many new technologies. I enjoy the day-to-day process with a team. I\u2019ve surrounded myself with really intelligent, really creative people who enjoy the process of the world building. We enjoy leveling up in our working process. It\u2019s a long, steady state thing where I\u2019m not having to create a new startup, build a team and then disband that team \u2014 the way the movies cycled for me back in the \u201980s and \u201990s. Now, I\u2019m at a kind of a crossroads where I have to decide if I want to keep doing this. <\/p>\n

Four and five are written. If we\u2019re as successful as we might potentially be, I\u2019m sure the films will continue. The question for me will be: Do I direct them both? Do I direct one of them? At what point do I pass the baton? How pervasive do I want it to be in my life?<\/p>\n

AP: When do you think you\u2019ll decide?<\/p>\n

CAMERON: I\u2019m not going to make any decisions about that until probably Q2 of next year, when the dust has settled. And there are also new technologies to consider. Generative AI is upon us. It\u2019s going to transform the film business. Does that make our work flow easier? Can I make \u201cAvatar\u201d movies more quickly? That would be a big factor for me.<\/p>\n

AP: You\u2019ve said the movie industry needs to use technological advances to bring down budgets. Is that the way forward?<\/p>\n

CAMERON: The theatrical business is dwindling. Hopefully it doesn\u2019t continue to dwindle. Right now, it\u2019s plateaued at about 30% down from 2019 levels. Let\u2019s hope it doesn\u2019t get cannibalized more. In fact, let\u2019s hope we can bring some of that magic back. But the only way to keep that magic alive and strengthen it is to make the kinds of movies people feel they need to see in a movie theater. Unfortunately, those movies are not getting greenlit as much as they used to be because studios can\u2019t afford them. Or they can only afford to take the risk on certain blue chip stocks, so it doesn\u2019t allow new IP to get launched. It doesn\u2019t allow new filmmakers to come into those genres.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to see the cost of VFX artists come down. VFX artists get scared and say, \u201cOh, I\u2019m going to be out of a job.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cNo, the way you\u2019re going to be out of a job is if trends continue and we just don\u2019t make these kinds of movies anymore.\u201d If you develop these tools or learn these tools, then your throughpoint will be quicker and that will bring the cost of productions down, and studios will be encouraged to make more and more of these types of films. To me, that\u2019s a virtuous cycle that we need to manifest. We need to make that happen or I think theatrical might never return.<\/p>\n

AP: I do sometimes feel watching movies like \u201cLawrence of Arabia\u201d or \u201cTitanic\u201d that these are monuments of a bygone era.<\/p>\n

CAMERON: I would love to think that we\u2019ve been building a new monument for the last three or four years. And I think there will always be a market for the new monument builds. The streamers kind of cannibalized the theatrical market with the promise of a lot of money to attract top filmmakers and top casts, and then that money has all retrenched back. The budgets aren\u2019t there. Everything is starting to look like it\u2019s driving toward a mediocrity. Everything starts to look to me like a typical network procedural, or at least that could be an end point within just a couple years. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the economics of streaming expanded rapidly and then contracted rapidly. Now, we\u2019re betwixt and between models. It\u2019s cannibalized theatrical and, at the same time, it\u2019s not delivering the budgets to do the kind of imaginative, phantasmagorical filmmaking. <\/p>\n

AP: \u201cAvatar\u201d has basically unfolded as a family saga. It seems like in these films, what you\u2019re most interested is spirituality and human connection. <\/p>\n

CAMERON: The \u201cAvatar\u201d films, and certainly the new one \u201cFire and Ash,\u201d do exactly the same thing. In a way, they cast us in a good light. The humans in the story are the bad guys. But really what it\u2019s saying is that the attributes we value \u2014 our interpersonal and intercommunity connections, our spirituality, our empathy \u2014 in the movies they reside in the Na\u2019vi. But of course we as the audience take the Na\u2019vi\u2019s side. So they seem a kind of aspirational, better version of us. In a sense, it\u2019s still empowering and reinforcing certain values and ethics and morals. <\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s a little more challenging in movie three because we show Na\u2019vi who have kind of fallen from grace and are adversarial with other Na\u2019vi. I think one of the reasons \u201cAvatar\u201d has been successful in all markets around the world is because everybody is in a family or wishes they were in a family. They have their ties. They have their tribes. They have their connections. And that\u2019s what these films are about. What would you risk everything for?<\/p>\n

AP: Does that apply to \u201cGhosts of Hiroshima\u201d as well? You\u2019ve spoken about it like a tragedy of disconnection. <\/p>\n

CAMERON: \u201cGhosts of Hiroshima\u201d is about testing our empathy boundaries. Somebody needed to be empathetic to the fact that a nuclear weapon was going to be used against human beings. And I don\u2019t want to go down the rabbit hole of should the bombs have been dropped, who was right, who was wrong. But I do want to remind people of what these weapons are capable of doing against targets. It\u2019s unfathomable. <\/p>\n

There were three bombs in 1945. One was used as a test and two against people. There are now 12,000 and they range in power from 100 to over 200 times the energy that was generated at either one of those two bombings. We\u2019re in a very precarious world right now. And because of all the geopolitical challenges internationally \u2014 more nuclear powers, more saber rattling, unaccountable leadership in Russia and America right now \u2014 I think we\u2019re in as precarious a situation as we were in the Cuban missile crisis era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 James Cameron recently turned 71 as he brought his third \u201cAvatar\u201d film, \u201cFire and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[39601,88,793,20380,206,965],"class_list":["post-113109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-charles-pellegrino","tag-entertainment","tag-general-news","tag-james-cameron","tag-movies","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}