James Cameron Hints at Moving On From Avatar After Third Film

James Cameron may finally be willing to give his blue aliens a rest. In a recent interview, the blockbuster director said that after working on the Avatar series for 21 years, he is looking around the landscape and asking what other stories he wants to tell.

The filmmaker questions which ideas he wants to direct versus write or produce going forward. He recently mapped out his projects around the question of what will do the most good and considered how that will make the world better for his kids. Cameron added that people do not want to be too didactic or shrill about things regarding a movie’s themes and messaging, and that a film’s success ultimately comes down to its characters. He has not decided what he will pursue next and remains in a liminal state of mapping out the last act of his career.

Shortly after last year’s Avatar: Fire and Ash was released, Cameron began to signal that the previously planned fourth and fifth Avatar films weren’t guaranteed. While Fire and Ash recently hit streaming, it made an impressive $1.4 billion at the box office. This marked a significant drop-off from the first Avatar’s $2.7 billion and the second film’s $2.4 billion. The biggest problem, according to Cameron, is that these movies are hideously expensive and take a long time to make. He wants to do them in half the time for two-thirds of the cost and stated that it would take up to a year to brainstorm how to achieve that.

Cameron is currently 71 years old and has not directed a non-Avatar film since 1997’s record-setting Titanic. Before that, he directed the first two Terminator movies, Aliens, The Abyss, True Lies, and other features. While the Avatar series has made billions, many have long wished the director would apply his blockbuster filmmaking skills to something else. While it remains unconfirmed whether Cameron’s next project will be Avatar-related, the tremendous cost of making these films and the director’s shifting priorities suggest a change may finally come to pass.

Source: Polygon