Of course, James Cameron is already thinking about the sixth and seventh installments of Avatar. With the long-awaited Avatar sequel on the 2022 film schedule, we’ll finally get to see the next film in the franchise that started 13 years ago. It’s been known for a while that the film's director James Cameron has been working on multiple sequels for quite some time. However, while he has ideas for Avatar 6 and 7 he understands there might be an issue with planning that far into the future.
In a conversation with THR, Cameron discussed his plans for the future of Avatar. In the profile, the director said if there’s a demand he’s ready to create many, many more stories about Pandora. However, the story notes that if it takes the director another 25 years to make two more Avatar movies he might be too old to successfully helm another. Cameron also said if six and seven happen he’d be 89 by the time he got around to making them. He elaborated on this potential problem, saying:
Obviously, I’m not going to be able to make Avatar movies indefinitely, the amount of energy required… I would have to train somebody how to do this because, I don’t care how smart you are as a director, you don’t know how to do this.
Cameron then told the magazine that he thinks he can probably make five or six more movies total, with three of them likely being Avatar films.
Clearly, the director has a massive game plan for Avatar’s future, as proved by the fact that they’ve already filmed parts of Avatar 4 while they were making The Way of the Water. He explained that they’ve filmed most of the first act of the fourth installment. While a sixth and seventh movie may be a long shot it looks like we’ll at least get two more movies following the sequel’s release this month.
We’ll probably have to wait one to 13 years to see Avatar 3, and then wait some more for the fourth and fifth installments. In the meantime, we can prepare now to see Avatar: The Way of the Water. We found out a few years ago that there would be seven new characters in the movie, some of which we’ve been able to see in the jaw-dropping trailers. We also know the movie will be over 3 hours, however, I personally was not surprised by this given Cameron’s history of making long movies (Avatar is 2 hours and 41 minutes, and Titanic is 3 hours and 14 minutes). One of the most exciting things I’ve learned about this sequel is just how stunned the cast was by Avatar 2. Based on all of this it sounds like we're in for an amazing adventure in Pandora.
If James Cameron's calculations are what actually happens, we’ll get Avatar 6 or 7 around 2043. In the meantime, you’ll be able to catch Avatar: The Way of the Water in theaters on December 16, and you can watch the film that started it all, Avatar, with a Disney+ subscription.
