Cameron May Hand Avatar Directing to New Filmmaker
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- James Cameron told Denise Donlon in an interview for Canada's governor general's performing arts awards that he is considering handing the Avatar franchise — which he has steered since 2005 — to another director.
- Cameron said he is in a 'liminal state' deciding how to shape the 'last act' of the Avatar universe, a stretch that could last 'a year or 20 years,' and that he has not made any final decisions.
- Cameron previously floated leaving Avatar in 2022, then in 2024 insisted anyone hoping to take the next two films from him would have to 'run him over with a bus.'
- Cameron's record as a producer handing projects to other directors has been mixed, including Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days, Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, Robert Rodriguez's Alita: Battle Angel, and Tim Miller's Terminator: Dark Fate — the last of which Miller later said left him with no desire to work with Cameron again.
- Avatar: Fire and Ash earned almost $1.5bn worldwide but 'disappeared into the cultural undergrowth,' with the column arguing Pandora's supply of unexplored territory may be running low.
Why it matters: Cameron has steered Avatar for over two decades and built it into the highest-grossing film trilogy of all time, but Fire and Ash's nearly $1.5bn haul was met with cultural indifference — a sign of creative fatigue that makes his successor choice unusually consequential for a franchise still worth billions to its studio.
