Backup Plan for ‘Avatar’ If ‘Fire & Ash’ Fails

Key Insights

• Franchise Future: James Cameron is ready to conclude the Avatar series if Fire & Ash underperforms.
• Final Story: There is one remaining plot thread that Cameron will resolve in a book if necessary.
• Box Office Concerns: Factors like “sequelitis” and streaming competition could impact audience turnout.
• Upcoming Releases: The performance of Avatar: Fire & Ash will be compared to other films like Wicked: For Good and Zootopia 2.

December is here, and with it, a new Avatar movie. These movies keep making that holiday money, and the upcoming Fire & Ash looks to keep that going. But if for whatever reason it underperforms and this was the last movie in the series? James Cameron’s got a contingency plan.

What is James Cameron’s Plan for the Avatar Franchise?

On a recent episode of Matt Belloni’s “The Town” podcast, the filmmaker said he was “absolutely” prepared to close the book on the franchise if needed, acknowledging he’s been “in Avatar land for [30] years. If this is where it ends, cool.”

He’s not open to completely handing things over to someone else—”I could produce it. I don’t think there’d ever be a version where there’s another Avatar movie that I didn’t produce closely,” he mentioned—but if need be, he’ll tie things up with a book.

Yes, really: there’s apparently just one open story thread at the end of Fire & Ash, and he’ll bring it to the page. But again, that’s only if this new movie underperforms.

Why is this on his mind? He mentioned concerns of “forces” like “sequelitis,” streaming, and COVID that would keep audiences away. Funnily enough, these were also concerns raised about The Way of Water in 2022, and look how that went. To his point, though, 2025’s not been the best year for franchises: audiences generally bounced on M3GAN 2.0 and Thunderbolts, to the point Blumhouse admitted it might’ve overestimated interest in its killer cyborg.

How Will Avatar: Fire & Ash Perform at the Box Office?

Then again, Wicked: For Good and Zootopia 2 both look ready to make a killing at the box office over the next few weeks, so we’ll see how Avatar: Fire & Ash does when it lands on December 19.

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