Cameron Wants Avatar 4 & 5 Cheaper — But Needs a Year to Figure Out How

James Cameron has a plan for Avatar 4 and 5. Sort of. The legendary director says he wants to make the next two entries in his Pandoran saga faster and cheaper than anything he’s done before — but right now, he doesn’t actually know how to do that yet.

Speaking on The Empire Film Podcast, Cameron was candid about where things stand after the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash. “You know, I’ll be doing some writing. I’ve got a number of projects that I’m cooking,” he said. “And Avatar 4 and 5 are still floating out there. We’re going to be looking at some new technologies to try to do them more efficiently. Because they’re hideously expensive and take a long time. I want to do them in half the time for two-thirds of the cost. That’s my metric.”

Then came the catch: “It’s going to take us a year or so to figure out how to do that. And in the meantime, I’ll be writing and probably be doing a couple of other things.”

So yes — Cameron’s next big project is figuring out how to make his next big project.

Why the Push to Cut Costs

The numbers tell the story. The original Avatar trilogy has collectively cost Disney upwards of $1.1 billion in production alone — and that’s before you factor in the marketing campaigns, which have historically rivaled the films’ budgets themselves. Fire and Ash reportedly carried a $400 million price tag, and while its $1.48 billion global haul would be a career-defining achievement for almost any other filmmaker, it fell noticeably short of The Way of Water‘s $2.4 billion and the original’s $2.7 billion. The franchise is still the only one in history where every single installment has crossed $1 billion — but the downward trend is hard to ignore.

Disney is clearly paying attention. The studio has already been in discussions about ways to bring the runtime and budget down for future installments, and Cameron appears to be on the same page — whether that’s entirely his own instinct or a reflection of the current pressure inside the company is an open question. Disney has faced its own financial turbulence recently, with layoffs touching even Marvel Studios.

What “new technologies” Cameron is eyeing hasn’t been specified, though the obvious conversation in Hollywood right now circles around AI. Cameron hasn’t said whether he’s open to leaning into that, and it’s worth remembering that this is the same director who essentially invented the production pipeline for performance-capture and stereoscopic 3D filmmaking. If anyone’s going to find a genuinely novel technical solution, it’s him.

Is the Saga Actually Happening?

Cameron has been careful not to promise anything. “I don’t know if the saga goes beyond this point,” he said. “I hope it does. But, you know, we prove that business case every time we go out.” He’s noted before that he’d hold a press conference and reveal the full plot of Avatar 4 and 5 if Disney decided to pull the plug — which is either a charming gesture toward fans or a quiet negotiating tactic, depending on how you read it.

There are reasons for cautious optimism. Producer Rae Sanchini said last month that scripts are already in hand and the team is moving “full speed ahead.” Disney still has tentative release dates locked in: December 21, 2029 for Avatar 4, and December 19, 2031 for Avatar 5. And Cameron has framed Fire and Ash as the conclusion of the first trilogy, with the final two films forming their own connected duology — meaning there’s a genuine creative reason to keep going, not just a commercial one.

He also mentioned, almost as an aside, that he wants to novelize the entire saga — even acknowledging there’s “no business model for it anymore” — because “it might be good to have the canonical record of what it was all supposed to be.” That’s the kind of thing you say when you’re thinking about legacy, not just the next opening weekend.

For now, Cameron is in a rare position: a filmmaker who has made three of the highest-grossing movies ever and is still trying to convince a room — maybe including himself — that the next two are worth it. “After that, I’m like Roadrunner going off a cliff,” he said about what comes after his Billie Eilish concert film. He’s not wrong. But if anyone can figure out how to stick the landing, it’s the guy who built a ship to sink on a studio backlot and then dove to the actual Titanic wreck for research.

A year to figure it out. Then, presumably, Pandora again.