James Cameron thinks the Avatar sequels are a gamble. When it was released in December 2009, Avatar became a cultural phenomenon and grossed $749 million at the domestic box office and $2.7 billion worldwide. At the time, it was the highest-grossing film in history on both the domestic and worldwide box office charts. Since the release of the first film, Avatar has been given its own land at Animal Kingdom in Disney World and Cameron has been working on four sequels since 2012.
Avatar 2 has undergone a number of release date delays. The addition of three more sequels announced as well as developing the technology to film motion capture underwater has led to the film being delayed multiple times with production on it and the third film beginning in August 2017 and wrapping in 2020, three years later. The film currently has a release date scheduled for December 16, 2022. Despite being the sequel to one of the highest-grossing films of all time, many are skeptical of the film's potential box office performance.
Even Cameron has his concerns. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cameron worried about whether the Avatar sequels will make any money after COVID-19 has changed the film landscape so drastically. The four Avatar sequels have a combined budget of $1.5 billion, and the status of the fourth and fifth film depend on the box office success of Avatar 2 and Avatar 3. Cameron said:
"The big issue is: Are we going to make any damn money? Big, expensive films have got to make a lot of money. We’re in a new world post-COVID, post-streaming. Maybe those numbers will never be seen again. Who knows? It’s all a big roll of the dice.”
Cameron's fears speak to the anxiety of many as to the state of theatrical films after COVID-19. While there have been some success stories like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, even big hits like No Time To Die have underperformed compared to prior franchise entries because audiences are still hesitant to return to movie theaters. Combine that with various adult-skewing dramas like The Last Duel, King Richard, and West Side Story underperforming, it appears that it will be a while until moviegoing is anywhere near where it was before the pandemic. Avatar 2 does have some elements working its favor in that it is now an established property and it is a big sci-fi spectacle which has been the types of movies audiences do rush out for but it now will also have more competition as it opens the same day as Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
This is not the first time in Cameron's career that there have been doubts about his film's box office potential. Titanic went over budget and many expected it to bomb, but the film instead became the highest-grossing film at the time. History repeated itself with Avatar, with many expecting it to be a box office disappointment given the large budget in an original project with no brand association. However, Avatar went on to break Titanic's records and made Cameron the director of the top two highest-grossing movies of all time, so conventional wisdom would be not to bet against James Cameron.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
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