Ever since Avatar: Fire And Ash came out, one big question seems to be lingering between James Cameron and fans: “Will there be more Avatar movies after this?” Now that the third Avatar film has made a majority of its cash at the global box office and is dying down at a projected 1.5 billion worldwide as more 2026 movie releases roll in, it’s time to discuss that very question more in depth.
Fire And Ash had a big worldwide opening the weekend before Christmas with a $345 million debut, but it’s been made clear across its past month and a half in cineplexes that the sequel’s box office success has been cast in the shadows of the first two films. Let’s get into the specifics and what it could mean for the planned follow-up films.
How Is Avatar: Fire And Ash Doing At The Box Office?
Following Fire And Ash’s seventh weekend at the box office, the movie has made around $1.42 billion worldwide against a production budget of over $400 million. That makes Avatar 3 the No. 3 highest-grossing movie of last year, below China’s monster $2.26 billion hit Ne Zha 2 and Disney’s Zootopia 2 (which made $1.78 billion globally), per Box Office Mojo. It made the Avatar movies the biggest trilogy of all time, and its star Zoe Saldaña the highest-grossing actor of all time – dethroning Scarlett Johansson.
Clearly, the numbers show the Avatar movies can still inspire a lot of audiences to buy movie tickets, but if you look at what its predecessors did around the same time, there’s also a clear decline in popularity happening, too. At day 45 at the box office, Fire And Ash was at $386.7 million domestically total, whereas the original had grossed $595.8 million, and the 2022 sequel had surpassed it at $620.8 (via The Numbers).
The Way of Water certainly had a leg up, given it was the first Avatar movie in thirteen years, and Fire and Ash came out just three years after the first sequel. It also doesn’t help matters that the latest installment was mixed among critics, with our own Fire And Ash review giving the movie a respectable, but not amazing, 3.5 out of 5. Cameron couldn’t pull off Avatar growing with each of its movies, and there has to be some concern over whether a fourth movie would flop or significantly lose money going forward.
What James Cameron Has Said Needs To Happen To Make More Sequels
For the time being, Avatar 4 technically has a release date for December 21, 2029, along with Avatar 5 dated for December 19, 2031. Cameron has previously confirmed that he has written both scripts and has even filmed some of Avatar 4, but during Fire And Ash’s press tour, James Cameron has consistently emphasized a big “if” when talking about Avatar 4 and 5. Here’s what he said about how much it needs to make for him to make another one:
It is a metric f–kton of money, which means we need to make two metric f–ktons of money to make a profit. I have no doubt in my mind that this movie will make money. The question is, does it make enough money to justify doing it again?
The results don’t exactly amount to those expectations, even though the filmmaker didn’t give us a specific dollar amount. If Fire And Ash’s performance doesn’t prove worthy, Cameron has said he’ll either write a book, hold a press conference, or put out a press release about what was going to happen in the planned next two movies he was working on. Cameron has also talked about the possibility of waiting “a while until we figure out how to bring costs down” since, for the time being, making an Avatar movie costs a “metric f–kton” to produce.
Why Avatar Might End As A Trilogy
While Fire and Ash’s box office performance shows a decline in interest from audiences over the franchise, it’s worth noting that the Avatar movies are still one of the biggest movie franchises in history. They currently sit at No. 12 (per The Numbers), but what’s impressive about that is it’s the only movie among the top fifteen to be there with just three movies to its name! There’s also the fact that it’s one of Disney’s biggest properties, with the studio having money invested into Avatar at their theme parks.
Surely, Walt Disney Studios must be looking at ways for Avatar to continue right now if they can be made for less than they have before. However, Cameron and his production company do own the rights to the IP (with Disney having distribution rights), so it’s not like the House of Mouse can simply decide to make more of them without his consent, and Cameron isn’t one to cut corners on the production side of things. Plus, Cameron has said he’s OK if Fire And Ash is “the last one” to THR since there’s really “only one [unanswered question] in the story”.
Now, during CinemaBlend’s interview with the legendary filmmaker, he said “artistically” he’s ready to continue the franchise, but he also has a few ideas for smaller movies he’s been working on he might want to do as well, like another Terminator movie, an adaptation of The Last Train from Hiroshima and the fantasy novel The Devils. Each of these films would theoretically cost a lot less than Avatar movies do, and he’d get to fulfill his visions for them without compromise.
To round things up here, it’s looking like it’s more likely that Avatar will remain a trilogy for now than hearing about a greenlight for Avatar 4 and 5 in the next coming weeks, but that’s just an educated guess. We’ll keep you updated here on CinemaBlend as more Avatar news surfaces. Fire And Ash is still playing in theaters, with the other two available to stream on Disney+.