Avatar question lingers as James Cameron charts his career’s last act

So, James Cameron has been living in the world of Avatar for so long you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd forgotten how to make anything else. His last film that wasn’t set on Pandora was Titanic – yes, really – and that came out almost three decades ago. Naturally, everyone’s wondering: what’s next for the man who loves blue aliens, deep-sea diving, and the odd billion-dollar box office?

Looking Beyond Pandora

In a recent interview, Cameron hinted he’s actually been doing a bit of soul-searching about his future as a filmmaker. He openly admitted he’s mapping out the ‘last act’ of his career, whatever that might mean in Cameron-years (he’s 71 and clearly not slowing down for anyone). After obsessively churning out Avatar content for more than two decades – a run only interrupted by building a submarine and popping down to Earth’s deepest trench, because of course he did – he’s finally wondering what comes next.

Cameron laid out what’s going through his head at the moment. Here’s how he described his process during the interview:

“That’s the question of the hour for me. There’s been momentum in the Avatar universe for 21 years at this point because we started in 2005. I took a little time off to build a submersible and dive to the deepest spot on the planet, as you do, but I came back to Avatar after that. And it’s been kind of an unbroken continuum.”

He went on to explain he’s genuinely looking at which stories he might want to tell outside Pandora, and whether he needs to be the one directing, or if he could step back, write, or just produce while letting other directors in. His self-imposed criteria for the ‘last act’ is a bit loftier than most: he literally wrote “What will do the most good?” in giant letters atop his project list, then started grading each potential film on whether it’ll make the world better or at least do something to nudge humanity in the right direction.

Here’s Cameron spelling out his little existential project week:

“The criterion — I’ve literally mapped this out for myself over the last two weeks — I started with, ‘What will do the most good?’ I put that in block letters at the top. 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?’ I haven’t made those decisions yet. I’m still in this liminal state of mapping out… the last act, if you will. And I don’t know if that last act will last a year or 20 years.”

Possible Next Steps

If, like me, you’ve been itching for him to try something besides Avatar for his next trick, you’re in luck – at least in theory. He’s publicly bandied about several possible projects: there’s Ghosts of Hiroshima, something called The Devils, and, yes, whispers of yet another Terminator film. He’s also teased getting back together with Robert Rodriguez for another collaboration. No one knows which of these – if any – will get the Cameron treatment next. But we do know he’s taking the question quite seriously.

Still Na’vi… For Now

As for Avatar, the latest entry, Avatar: Fire and Ash, made an obscene amount of money by normal-people standards – over $1.4 billion at the box office. The problem? Its predecessors were even bigger cash cows: the first Avatar pulled in $2.9 billion worldwide, The Way of Water wasn’t far behind at $2.3 billion, so Fire and Ash technically ‘underperformed’ by Cameron standards.

Avatar: Fire and Ash brought in $1.4 billion globally, making it the lowest-grossing in the series so far.

Cameron’s already partially filmed bits for Avatar 4 and 5, but has said he’ll wrap things up neatly if the saga stops with Fire and Ash. Earlier this year, he admitted he doesn’t know if the series will carry on, but promised, if it’s the end: he’ll hold a press conference and spill the beans on everything he had planned for those future sequels.