Legendary director James Cameron is thinking about what the rest of his career looks like, which may or may not involve the next two Avatar movies.
After receiving the Canadian Governor General’s Prize, Cameron told GG Awards what's next for him. "There's been momentum in the Avatar universe for 21 years at this point because we started in 2005. It's been kind of an unbroken continuum," said Cameron. "So this is the point where I'm looking at the landscape and asking, 'What are the other stories I want to tell? How many of them do I need to direct myself versus writing and/or producing with other filmmakers?'"
It sounds like Cameron's future may not include Avatar at all, as the director shared that "over the last two weeks" he has "literally mapped out" what his last act of filmmaking looks like. "I started with, 'What will do the most good?' I put that in block letters at the top," added Cameron. "And I started looking at all the projects I'm most fond of, asking, 'How's this going to improve our condition? How's that going to make the world better for our kids?'"
This is a complete 180 from Cameron's comments just two years ago. Following reports in 2024 that Cameron might not direct the next two Avatar movies, the director told The Hollywood Reporter, "They're going to have to stop me. I've got plenty of energy, I love doing what I'm doing," adding that the only way "somebody else is going to do it" is if "I get hit by a bus and I'm in an iron lung."
However, that was before Avatar: Fire and Ash had hit screens. As we know, Avatar movies take a very long time to make, and as Hollywood studios continue to cut budgets, movies like Avatar may fade out. In May, Cameron told Empire that Avatar movies are "simply too massive, too expensive, and too time-consuming to keep making the same way." Avatar 4 officially entered production in 2022. However, despite targeting a 2029 release, the fourquel is still very much "floating," according to Cameron.
But we might not have to worry right away, as Cameron assured GG Awards, "I haven't made any decisions yet. I'm still in this liminal state of mapping out, you know, kind of the last act. And I don't know if that last act will last a year or 20 years."
For more, check out our guide to upcoming movies and keep up with 2026 movie release dates.
