James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ machine is still moving, even after the third movie took a beating from critics.
‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ may have split reviewers hard, with some calling it the weakest chapter yet, but that has not slowed plans for what comes next. The fourth and fifth films are still in motion, and according to executive producer Rae Sanchini, the team is treating both sequels as a go. So while the reviews got rough, the franchise itself is not backing off.
“Right now we’re figuring out the schedule,” Sanchini said. “We’re working hard on it right now, budgeting, scheduling, planning, building out our new pipeline for them. As far as we’re concerned, we’re full speed ahead.”
‘Avatar 4’ And ‘Avatar 5’ Are Still Moving Ahead
That is the clearest sign yet that James Cameron’s long-range Pandora plan is still intact. The untitled fourth and fifth films are currently slated for 2029 and 2031, though Sanchini said those dates remain “tentative” for now.
She also said the studio is reworking part of the production process behind the franchise’s visual effects, using what she called “a more generally accessible platform” to build out the spectacle for the next movies. In other words, the tech pipeline is evolving, and the team appears focused on making the later chapters more manageable behind the scenes.
Sanchini sounded confident about the creative side too.
“We have the scripts, they’re brilliant,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re heading forward.”
That confidence comes after ‘Fire and Ash,’ the follow-up to 2022’s ‘The Way of Water,’ crossed $1 billion globally in January and ended its theatrical run with a reported $1.48 billion worldwide. Those numbers matter. A lot. Critics can bruise a franchise, but box office on that scale still talks louder in Hollywood.
Critics Went Hard On ‘Fire And Ash’
The problem for Cameron is that the third movie did not get the same kind of awe-driven response that helped define the earlier films. Several critics argued that the visual magic of Pandora no longer feels fresh, and some were openly brutal about it.
Nicholas Barber gave the film one star out of five and called it the “longest and worst” entry in the series. He argued that, 16 years after the first ‘Avatar,’ the sense of novelty is gone and the style now feels “outdated,” comparing the visuals to “an old arcade game.”
Peter Bradshaw was not much kinder, calling the movie a “gigantically dull hunk of nonsense” and saying that outside a few dramatic moments, it was simply “uninteresting.”
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote that Cameron “finally falls flat,” arguing that the film never feels like it breaks new ground. He praised the scale and craft, calling it “clean, massive, and staged at a level several cuts above Hollywood’s usual CGI slopfests,” but still said it lacked the “visceral excitement” of the first two films.
Brian Truitt also took aim at the movie’s structure, saying it suffers from “endless subplots, scattershot character development and borrowed story beats.”
James Cameron Has Left Himself Some Wiggle Room
Even with the sequel plans still active, Cameron has not spoken as if everything is carved in stone.
In January, he said the team needed to figure out how to make ‘Avatar’ movies more cheaply if the franchise is going to keep going.
Then, at a March press event, he reportedly said it was “likely, but not 100%” that he will direct the final two planned installments himself.
So yes, ‘Avatar 3’ got dragged in some corners. But with more than $1 billion at the global box office and two more movies still moving through development, Cameron’s Pandora empire is not going anywhere.
