If James Cameron never makes another Avatar film, he’s happy where this new one leaves things off. Speaking with io9 about that new film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, the writer and director of some of the greatest sequels of all time pushed back on calling this film a sequel, instead describing the first three films as one saga and the last two as another. Which is why, if those films don’t happen, he’s okay leaving it here.
“I think you’ve got a little bit of experience with sequels and how you have to deliver beyond the audience’s expectation, take them from the familiar to the new each time,” Cameron said. “I don’t think of Fire and Ash as a sequel. I think it was a culmination of a saga. I like ‘saga’ better than ‘sequel’ because a lot of where we were going with the story was in the original architecture of the story. So if you think of this as the third act, I think that’s healthier. As opposed to a typical Hollywood sequel, where they make a bunch of money with a movie and then they’re like, ‘Oh, crap. We’ve got to scramble around and get a new script. Maybe it’s not so good, but let’s just shoot it and get it out there.’ That’s not what we’re doing here at all. It’s a long game. And I went into it knowing that we’d be playing a long game and betting that the audience would come along with us and care about these people. Because they may be 10 feet tall and blue, but they’re people.”
But those people are, at least for now, still scheduled to return to theaters with Avatar 4 in 2029 and Avatar 5 in 2031. In the years since making those announcements, Cameron has cooled on whether he thinks they’ll actually happen and now explains that, if they do, that’s a whole other part of the story. “It’s its own saga,” he said of films four and five. “It’s got a beginning and a middle and an end that plays out across these two films. They’re vaporware right now.”
His actors hope they’re more than that, though. “I really hope that we get to make four and five, because it’s such a mind-bending, crazy story that I feel has to be told,” Jack Champion, who plays Spider, told io9. “It goes to the next level,” added Trinity Bliss, who plays Tuk.
Avatar: Fire and Ash opens December 19, and you have to imagine the fate of those sequels rests on whether people like it and come out to see it. We’ll find out soon.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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