James Cameron Shares Latest on Upcoming ‘Avatar’ Films: Here’s What We Know
As fans eagerly anticipate the fourth and fifth installments of the Avatar franchise, director James Cameron has shared plans to streamline production for these upcoming films.
The three-time Oscar winner provided an update on the franchise following last year’s release of Avatar: Fire and Ash. Cameron revealed his ambition to produce the new entries “in half the time for two thirds of the cost” compared to previous films, including the original Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022).
“After that, I’m like Roadrunner going off a cliff,” he stated on The Empire Film Podcast, discussing his plans post-Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D). “I’ll be doing some writing, I’ve got a number of projects I’m cooking. And Avatar 4 and 5 are still floating out there.”
Cameron emphasized the need for new technologies to enhance efficiency, stating, “We’re gonna be looking at some new technologies to try and do them more efficiently, because they’re hideously expensive and take a long time. I want to do them in half the time for two thirds of the cost; that’s my metric. And so, it’s going to take us a year or so to figure out how to do that. In the meantime, I’ll be writing and probably doing a couple of other things.”
The creator of the $987 million franchise has previously indicated that if he decides to halt production of Avatar films, he will “hold a press conference” to inform the public. He added, “I don’t know if the saga goes beyond this point. I hope it does. But, you know, we prove that business case every time we go out.”
James Cameron attends the European premiere of ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ on Dec. 5, 2025 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. (Lyvans Boolaky/Getty Images for Disney)
Despite acknowledging that there is “no business model for it anymore,” Cameron expressed interest in novelizing the films, stating, “it might be good to have the canonical record of what it was all supposed to be.”
