James Cameron, undoubtedly selling short the prospects for Avatar: The Way of Water, teased that if the film wasn’t a hit and couldn’t break even, we might not see all four planned sequels. Well, that hasn’t been a problem. At over $1.7B worldwide, and 7th place all-time at the box office, Cameron is ready to admit that they are at profitability and we will get his full vision on the big screen.
Cameron told GQ…
“It looks like with the momentum that the film has now that we’ll easily pass our break even in the next few days, so it looks like I can’t wiggle out of this and I’m gonna have to do these other sequels. I know what I’m going to be doing the next six or seven years.”
We were always going to get Avatar 3, which is completed shooting and will introduce a surly bunch of fire-based Na’vi characters. But now we know that Avatar 4, which had begun early production during shoots on the previous sequels, and Avatar 5 will be next. Cameron has also said there could be more sequels after that if Disney wants them, but that’s an awful long time to be doing just one thing, right?
So if Cameron wasn’t working on Avatar, what other ideas would he have in mind? How about a return to Alita: Battle Angel? The popular film has been on fans’ minds asking for a sequel, but could Cameron revive it as a streaming series?
That’s the idea he considers during an interview with The Business podcast. Cameron hasn’t always been a huge fan of streaming, at least not when it comes to feature films, but he can appreciate the long-form storytelling potential it offers, especially for something like Alita: Battle Angel…
“I’d love to be on it. I think streaming is an opportunity to do long form. I certainly have no dearth of ideas, and I like working with other filmmakers, like I did with Robert Rodriguez on ‘Alita: Battle Angel. It didn’t quite make enough money to make everybody grinning from ear to ear, but we may revisit that IP, we hope to anyway.”
There are only a few filmmakers where $400M is considered underwhelming, and Cameron is one of them. Released in 2019, Alita: Battle Angel starred Rosa Salazar as an amnesiac cyborg attempting to learn the truth about who she is, while fighting other robotic villains, of course. Cameron had been developing the film, an adaptation of the hit manga, since 2000, after being introduced to it by Guillermo Del Toro. Cameron’s Dark Angel television series was inspired by the original manga. Then something called Avatar came along nothing was ever the same for Cameron, so he passed the directing reins on Alita over to Robert Rodriguez, who dig a bang-up job on it.
Personally, I was a huge fan and want to see Cameron return to this world, which was rich in possibilities similar to Avatar‘s Pandora. It it does happen, hopefully Salazar can return because she was tremendous in the lead role.
