James Cameron to start work on fourth and fifth Avatar films

By Neil Wilkes, Editor-in-chief | 1h

James Cameron says that he is preparing to start work on the final two Avatar movies.

Avatar director James Cameron has revealed that he is preparing to start work on the final two movies in the franchise.

The sequel to the 2009 original, Avatar: The Way of Water, was released before Christmas and has just become the seventh highest-grossing film of all time, with realistic expectations of entering the top five in short order.

Cameron has already filmed a third movie, for release at Christmas 2024, and had also penned scripts for a fourth and fifth films - although whether they would be made depended on the box-office performance of The Way Of Water.

Speaking to Chris Wallace's podcast in the last week, Cameron joked: "It looks like I can't wiggle out of this and I'm gonna have to do these other sequels. I know what I'm going to be doing the next six or seven years."

Elaborating on production plans, he continued: "The point is we're going to be okay. I'm sure that we'll have a discussion soon with with the top folks at Disney about the game plan going forward for Avatar 3, which is already in the can – we've already captured and photographed the whole film, so we're in extended post-production to do all that CG magic.

"And then Avatar 4 and 5 are both written. We even have some of 4 in the can. We've begun a franchise at this point. We've begun a saga that can now play out over multiple films."

The Way of Water has now grossed more than $1.7 billion at the global box office but is still dwarfed by the record $2.9 billion managed by the first film.