Only 13 years after the first movie surged to becoming the worldwide box office record holder, the trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water dropped. On December 16, the sequel to Avatar finally arrived, and with it, droves of cinema goers buzzing to return to the planet of Pandora. By the end of its run in 2023, it had eclipsed $2.3 million at the box office, making the top four at the worldwide box office of all time feature three James Cameron movies.
The certified hit-maker is on board for making another three films in the massively CGI series, with the box office success of Avatar 2 only spurring on his backers. On June 13, however, Disney announced a huge reshuffle “due to the writers’ strike,” which now sees Avatar 3 arriving in December 2025 rather than December 2024, Avatar 4 coming out in December 2029 rather than December 2026, and the fifth film shifting to 2031. Now, it’s been revealed that, in that five-year span between Avatar movies, Cameron wants to make a different movie.
Cameron’s last break between sequel worked out very well
It was the early 80s, and a budding Canadian filmmaker just had his first break as director and writer of Piranha II: The Spawning. Next would be the movie that would launch his career: The Terminator. Released in 1984, not only did it help establish Arnold Schwarzenegger as a hulking star, even before the now long-running Predator series, but it also showcased Cameron’s skill behind the camera and in blending sci-fi and horror.
Afterward, he next directed and wrote Aliens – a sequel to a sci-fi horror series that’s rated better than the original by many. Importantly, here, he managed to pivot the original sci-fi horror premise to sci-fi action, cutting his teeth and getting to grips with elements that would propel his career further. Then came The Abyss, which was powered through by incredible special effects while drawing on claustrophobic horror elements.
Finally, in 1991, he returned to his surprise hit film The Terminator with Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Again, he pivoted from a sci-fi horror story with strong special effects to a sci-fi action flick with even more impressive special effects. In fact, T2 has since been credited as the film to kick-start an obsession with CGI that’s enabled the surging popularity of films like those in the MCU, which are so popular that there’s even a Marvel exhibit at a museum. The results of this little break were astounding.
Avatar fans don’t need to worry about Avatar 4
Terminator 2 was groundbreaking and, much like Cameron’s work on Aliens, is graded by so many as the best in the now-bloated series and the one that people adore the most. A big part of this was the pivot of the T-800 to essentially be on the side of good and inventing the T-1000. It required technology that essentially didn’t exist at the time that Cameron had the idea for the liquefied foe, so they doubled down on making CGI that worked for the effects. Add the revolutionary imagery helped by his time on The Abyss and the action traits learned from Aliens, and T2 was a masterpiece.
Now, Terminator 2 is the Terminator movie that keeps fans and movie lovers coming back for more. Wherever you look, if there’s Terminator merchandise, nine times out of ten, it’s from T2. In iGaming, where official movie games often perform well, developers skipped straight over The Terminator to release the Terminator 2 roulette game. It, too, is a novelty among table games as the only movie-themed one. Yet, T2 is so well-known that it’ll stand alongside even the celebrity stories roulette and Gridiron Roulette in popularity.
As for more merchandise, Darkside Studio went straight for the T2 collectible range, with its finest piece being the T-800 On Motorcycle: Signature Edition. There are even rumors that when the original turns 40 next year, the two Cameron flicks will receive a special 4K Ultra HD release. All of this is to say that, the last time Cameron was a director and writer on movies between installments in a series of his own making, it led to one of the most beloved movies, let alone sci-fi sequels, of all time.
In between Avatar 3 and Avatar 4, the directing megastar has said that he wants to work on a pet project that draws from the book The Last Train from Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back. From American author Charles R. Pellegrino, it looks at life in the two cities decimated by the US and its use of atomic bombs before and after the explosions. While the book’s publication was suspended following criticisms, retelling the story on the big screen could lead to a more poignant look at the impact of weapons of mass destruction in Cameron’s Avatar series.
Fans of the Avatar series shouldn’t be worried about Cameron plying his trade elsewhere between the third and fourth installments; as his history has shown, it might make for an even more inventive sequel down the line.
Feature Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)