James Cameron Says Avatar 4 & 5 Aren’t a Sure Thing

In a world where massive franchises aren’t as indestructible as they used to be, James Cameron is hedging his bets. Sure Avatar is one of the highest grossing films of all times, it’s spawned it’s own section of Disney World, and it created a world so enticing that people allegedly committed suicide because they could actually go there, but audiences are fickle and James Cameron is smart. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, the mega director talked about the scope of taking on four sequels and the reality that there might not ever actually be four sequels.

Let’s face it, if Avatar 2 and 3 don’t make enough money, there’s not going to be a 4 and 5. They’re fully encapsulated stories in and of themselves. It builds across the five films to a greater kind of meta narrative, but they’re fully formed films in their own right, unlike, say, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where you really just had to sort of go, “Oh, shit, all right, well I guess I better come back next year.” Even though that all worked and everybody did.

The good news is that no matter what, Cameron is going to be busy for a pretty long time. Along with the Avatar Sequels, he’ll also be producing a reboot of the Terminator franchise scheduled for 2019.

Avatar 2 is scheduled to hit theaters on December 18, 2020.