It will take cost-cutting to create more Avatar films after Fire and Ash

LOS ANGELES — For James Cameron, following the release of the 2025 movie Avatar: Fire and Ash, it’s imperative to cut costs for future Avatar franchise films.

If the Canadian and New Zealand filmmaker can’t find a way to make the cost of production “cheaper,” he may be “doing something else” before getting to the fourth and fifth Avatar films that he’s previously announced plans for.

“There are many, many variables ahead of us before we can talk about four and five and beyond,” he told Reuters.

“It’s a universe, like the (George) Lucas universe, for example, it’s open-ended. I’ve only imagined a few more stories. Maybe it continues. Maybe it doesn’t,” he added.

Avatar: Fire and Ash, distributed by Disney, is scheduled to debut in movie theaters on Dec. 19, continuing the saga of the blue Na’vi people. Sam Worthington plays Jake Sully, and Zoe Saldaña portrays his wife, Neytiri.

It opens in the Philippines on Dec. 17, and has an MTRCB rating of PG.

All three of the Avatar films that have been completed utilize advanced motion capture technology, requiring large-scale budgets.

Mr. Cameron worries that with the popularization of streaming platforms, less people will see films in the movie theaters, including his Avatar projects. However, he remains optimistic.

“I still think people want to go have that deeper, more profound experience that you have when you can’t pause it (a movie). The second you can pause it, you lose that,” the Oscar-winner said.

For the cast members, it was meaningful to find emotional connections to their characters to keep themselves immersed in the fictional world.

“I plastered burn victims all over my trailer, which was horrific,” said Oona Chaplin, who portrays the new antagonist named Varang, the Na’vi leader of the volcano-dwelling clan. While she said she doesn’t think she would do that again, it did help her channel some of her character’s anger and grief.

Similarly, Zoe Saldaña, who reprises her role as Neytiri, said that being a real-life mother helped her channel Neytiri’s grief after losing a child.

Mr. Cameron applauded each actor’s authentic performance, noting that Avatar does not use any generative AI (artificial intelligence) to develop films.

“We have not historically used generative AI on Avatar films. I think the broad public doesn’t know how we’ve made these movies. They think it’s some kind of computer thing and now AI,” he added.

While the idea of synthetic actors replacing human actors worries the Titanic director, he does see the value in using AI as a supplementary tool to support creative endeavors. — Reuters