Avatar star Sam Worthington addresses the future of the hit franchise after the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash. Though plans have long been in place for a fourth and fifth installment, director James Cameron has suggested recently that he’s prepared to walk away from the franchise should this next movie not perform.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Worthington addresses Cameron’s comments, reinforcing the idea that more Avatar is far from guaranteed. According to the Jake Sully actor, Fire and Ash has a strong sense of finality to it. Check out his comment below:
“I think Jim is right. You’re after a movie that…Your hope is that it connects. And it’s very nerve-wracking when you hand a movie over. And we’ll see. This movie, Jake Sully said at the end of Avatar 2, ‘This is where we make our stand,’ so I think we know what’s coming. To me, this was always the final battle, the final showdown.
“I know Jim has ideas for where the saga continues, but I also know he’s sort of rounded off these two movies. They were one movie when he first wrote it, and I think his intention was to finish this with everything he’s got and see how it goes.”
Speaking on The Town podcast, Cameron recently said that Fire and Ash “is the culmination of a story arc.” Though the scripts for films four and five have been written, the director revealed that the end of the next installment leaves “one open thread” that he’ll resolve in a book if need be.
Concrete story details for Avatar 4 haven’t yet been revealed, but Cameron has previously revealed that the film features a significant time jump near the beginning. This further speaks to the idea that Fire and Ash serves as the end of this particular story arc for the Sully family and for Pandora, with the next film starting things fresh, at least to some extent.
It’s worth noting that stressing the sense of finality to Fire and Ash could be part of a tried and true marketing tactic. The film becomes much more of a must-see event for audiences if it marks the grand finale to a saga, rather than just being the third part of a five-part story.
Going off of the performance of the previous two movies, there’s reason to believe Fire and Ash will be a hit. Avatar (2009) stands as the highest-grossing movie of all time at $2.923 billion, and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) came in at $2.343 billion, making it the third highest-grossing movie of all time.
That being said, Fire and Ash seems unlikely to reach the highs of The Way of Water financially, given it’s coming only three years later (instead of 13) and its leaps forward technologically and visually will be less pronounced. With a break-even point that’s likely extremely high, there certainly is some degree of risk that the film will perform well, but not well enough to justify the massive expense of a fourth and fifth installment.
If the upcoming installment is to be the end of the Avatar franchise, the comments from Worthington and Cameron, at the very least, suggest that audiences won’t be left with a ton of questions. Avatar: Fire and Ash hits theaters on December 19.