With all the hubbub about James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third film in his Navi epic with more story to tell should he get the go-ahead, you’d think the director would be OK with seeing blue for the rest of his career. You’d be wrong. In fact, Jimmy has a plan to make movies that aren’t just Avatar forever.
In a profile with The Hollywood Reporter, Cameron, who noted that he hates profiles, acknowledged that even though he’s got plans for Avatar to go on for five movies, which, according to Sigourney Weaver, are “so amazing,” there’s a good chance Fire and Ash could be the last one, depending on whether it performs poorly at the box office.
“This can be the last one,” Cameron told THR. “There’s only one [unanswered question] in the story. We may find that the release of Avatar 3 proved how diminished the cinematic experience is these days, or we may find it proves the case that it’s as strong as it ever was—but only for certain types of films. It’s a coin toss right now. We won’t know until the middle of January.”
When asked which outcome he wants, Cameron threw back the question with two of his own, asking in kind if he’d want Fire and Ash to be such a wild success that he’d be compelled to keep going, or to fail “just enough” that he could justify working on something else.
“I’ve got other stories to tell, and I’ve got other stories to tell, and I’ve got other stories to tell within Avatar. What won’t happen is, I won’t go down the rabbit hole of exclusively making only Avatar for multiple years,” he said. “I’m going to figure out another way that involves more collaboration. I’m not saying I’m going to step away as a director, but I’m going to pull back from being as hands-on with every tiny aspect of the process.”
As for what’s on the table for Cameron to tackle next, he has his 3D Billie Eilish concert documentary, Hit Me Hard and Soft, coming out in the more immediate future. He’s also still hard at work trying to get his Ghost of Hiroshima film off the ground by having a script. But for folks looking for something more traditional in Cameron’s wheelhouse, he’s also looking to return to the Terminator series.
“Once the dust clears on Avatar in a couple months, I’m going to really plunge into that,” Cameron said, regarding Terminator. “There are a lot of narrative problems to solve. The biggest is how do I stay enough ahead of what’s really happening to make it science fiction.”
As Cameron alludes, his Terminator plans are still in early development and shouldn’t be considered conceptual. Given franchises like Alien have seen a surprisingly artful resurgence in the form of Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth, Cameron taking another swing at Terminator all these years later lends credence to it being a worthwhile venture. While Cameron found Alien: Earth to be “a lot of fun,” one takeaway he doesn’t want to perpetuate is its fanservicey callbacks to the first two movies.
“I’m not criticizing it, but I was there for Aliens, what 41 years ago? Something like that wouldn’t be of interest to me.”
In that same vein, another thing Cameron knows for sure is that his return to Terminator won’t include Arnold Schwarzenegger. “I can safely say he won’t be [in it]. It’s time for a new generation of characters. I insisted Arnold had to be involved in [2019’s] Termimator: Dark Fate, and it was a great finish to him playing the T-800,” Cameron said. “There needs to be a broader interpretation of Terminator and the idea of a time war and super intelligence. I want to do new stuff that people aren’t imagining.”
Cameron’s sentiment about moving on to something else was pointedly paralleled to a Reddit post THR brought to his attention titled, “Anyone else feel like it’s an unfortunate waste of talent that James Cameron will [spend] 35+ years on Avatar?” But Cameron took great exception to this well-trodden film bro take.
“I’m feeling fulfilled as an artist, and when [those critical fans] become filmmakers, they can make those types of decisions for themselves—or just stay the fuck out of it,” he said. “It’s my decision, not yours. It’s like saying, ‘Gee, I wish she wasn’t married to the same guy for so long.’ It’s none of your business.”
Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters and IMAX on December 19.
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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