James Cameron Reveals Contingency Plans if Avatar: Fire and Ash Fails
Well, it’s that time yet again. Three years after “Avatar: The Way of Water” came out and became the biggest event movie of 2022 (just as surely as its predecessor secured that title for 2009), the third installment in James Cameron’s Pandora saga is poised to smash the box office in less than two weeks. Nonetheless, on a recent podcast, Cameron explained that even a filmmaker as consistently and colossally triumphant as himself feels obliged to plan ahead for the possibility that his latest endeavor won’t culminate in another success story.
James Cameron on “Avatar” – An Overview
Cameron has been carrying the dream of Pandora inside him all his life, and now this bewitching alien moon threatened by the venal, nature-destroying remnants of humankind has come to define the latter stage of his career. On a November 24 episode of Matthew Belloni’s Spotify podcast, “The Town,” Cameron remarked that people have accused him of “getting stuck in a rut of ‘Avatar’,” to which he retorted: “It’s not a rut; it’s an opportunity.” He explained that the world of Pandora affords him a “very, very broad canvas” with which he can showcase all the themes he cares about, from the importance of family to the importance of protecting the environment.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” – Could It Fail?…
Of course, all his passion won’t do the franchise much good if the third film, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” doesn’t make back its $400 million budget. But who would ever have the temerity to suggest this possibility? Back in the mid-’90s, 20th Century Fox was terrified that his $200 million romantic period epic “Titanic” would go down in history as the most disastrously expensive arthouse film of all time… until it became the first film to gross more than $1 billion and established the Hollywood maxim that Belloni summarized as: “Never bet against Jim Cameron.” After the further world-smashing successes of Cameron’s first two “Avatar” films, he remarked, “It’s interesting that you have doubts still.”
Even with the odds so stacked in his favor, Cameron explained that he can’t help contemplating whatever factors may work against “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” The one that came to his mind first was sequel fatigue: “People tend to dismiss sequels, unless it’s the third ‘Lord of the Rings‘ film and you want to see what happens to everybody. Which, in my mind, this is: This is the culmination of a story arc. But that may not be how the public sees it.”
An even bigger potential threat, he said, is this decade’s combination of the rise of streaming services and the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, both of which have turned audiences away from the theatergoing experience. “It has to be an event,” he said, “and so that’s really narrowing… I have no doubt in my mind that this movie will make money. The question is: Does it make enough money to justify doing it again?”
…And What If It Does?
Cameron’s designation of “Avatar: Fire and Ash” as a “culmination” gives him a comfortable out in the event that it doesn’t return sufficient bang for its buck: asked whether he was “ready to walk away” if this should happen, he replied, “Absolutely… If this is where it ends, cool… There’s one open thread. I’ll write a book.”
The other viable option, Belloni suggested, would be to pass the franchise on to another filmmaker. However, Cameron viewed this option far less warmly. It is evident that he is determined for “Avatar” to remain his brainchild and passion project for as long as more movies are being made. “I could produce it,” he compromised, “I don’t think there’d ever be a version where there’s another Avatar movie that I didn’t produce closely.”
Conclusion
At this point, the smashing success of James Cameron’s latest film seems as fixed a constant as gravity. But then, gravity isn’t the same on Pandora as it is on Earth. Just as the “Avatar” franchise’s main antagonist – Stephen Lang’s hardened Colonel Miles Quaritch – is shown in the first film pumping iron to ensure that the alien moon’s low gravity doesn’t make him soft, so too must Cameron remain mindful of how the ever-greater budgets of his cinematic endeavors set ever-higher bars for their success.
Fortunately, he’s reached a point in the series that he wouldn’t mind ending on. It seems that “Fire and Ash” will (save for one unspecified plotline) conclude on a satisfying note that won’t necessitate further follow-ups. This is a blessing for those of us disappointed by the three-hour placeholder that was “Avatar: The Way of Water,” and for a blockbuster auteur who is well-prepared for even the most unlikely worst-case scenario.
