With ‘The Way of Water’ on fire, James Cameron says he can’t “wiggle out” of making more ‘Avatar’ movies

Before Avatar: The Way of Water debuted, James Cameron said the movie had to become one of the “third or fourth” highest-grossing movies of all time in order to break even.

With the movie now officially passing $1.5 billion at the box office, however, his high-water mark appears to have been set, which means more Avatar adventures are on the way.

That’s pretty handy, seeing as Avatar 3 is already shot, and the fourth and fifth installments are already written.

That’s what Cameron just told the titular host of HBO’s Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? “It looks like just with the momentum that the film has now that [it] will easily pass our break even in the next few days, actually, so it looks like I can’t wiggle out of this, I’m gonna have to do these other sequels,” the director said.

Cameron added, “I’m sure that we’ll have a discussion soon with the top folks at Disney about the game plan going forward for Avatar 3, which is already in the can — we’ve already captured and photographed the whole film, so we’re in extended post-production to do all that CG magic. And then Avatar 4 and 5 are both written. We even have some of 4 in the can.”

The Titanic Oscar winner expressed, “We’ve begun a franchise at this point … We’ve begun a saga that can now play out over multiple films.”

That said, Cameron admitted he was nervous that people wouldn’t embrace what’s now just the first sequel of his 2009 original, which is the highest-grossing movie of all time.

Avatar: The Way of Water was produced by 20th Century Studios, which, like ABC News, is a subsidiary of Disney.

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