It has crossed James Cameron’s mind ‘We Could Be Getting High on Our Own Supply’ with ‘Avatar 3’

On January 21, 2025By Littum

Hello, the planet is Pandora. There have to be some surprises in James Cameron’s cinematic box set that might leave viewers reeling, right?

At least that’s what crossed the director’s mind as he wrapped up post-production on “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” the third installment of his space saga about ruthless capitalists displacing the native Na’vi in their fierce quest for Unobtanium.

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In a new interview with Empirenoted Cameron that he is well ahead of where the first sequel, “The Way of Water,” was in the run-up to release in 2022. The films were mostly shot more than five years ago, with just a year’s worth of VFX- and post-production process in the aftermath.

“It’s in strong form, I think,” he told the British outlet. “We’ve doubled the number of completed shots at this stage of the game than we had on film two (and) the films are about the same length. So that puts us well ahead of the curve, which is something I’ve honestly never experienced before .” Laughing, he added that the process is “a little bit less nightmarish. We’re getting to the point where we’re actually getting good at this.”

“Yeah, we’ve got some really clever action set-pieces,” Cameron said. “You can get your blood pumping in this movie. But what excites me as an artist who recently turned 70 and has kind of done all that is not only the opportunity to get to do it again, but to reach a level of character and intrigue that you haven’t seen before in an ‘Avatar’ movie.”

It sounds like the attitude of an artist who really isn’t interested in just delivering more of the same. But as we know from other franchise films that tried to subvert their mythos a bit, or at least deliver some narrative twists like “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” did, sometimes fans don’t want bold swings.

“We just started riffing on it and twisting it and flipping it,” Cameron says of where this third installment fits into the overall five-film saga he has planned. “It’s a tricky thing. We can get high on our own supply here and everybody who looks at it says, ‘Fuck, that’s not what I signed up for.’ But if you don’t make brave choices, you’re wasting everyone’s time and money. That alone isn’t enough to create success, but it’s necessary. You have to break the mold every time.”

For our part, we’re just disappointed that “Avatar 3” is no longer called “Avatar: The Seed Bearer,” as originally rumored several years ago.

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