This holiday season we were welcomed back to Pandora with “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” This, along with the “Knives Out” series, is my favorite franchise. Everyone always talks about the technology and world of these films, which are phenomenal, but I truly love them for the characters and story. It’s so impressive to me that this ensemble and their interplay is so well realized and complex.
Still, James Cameron has been threatening that the final two installments in the series may not happen. This would be tragic because “Fire and Ash” is not a conclusion. Unlike Avatar or its sequel, this third entry doesn’t complete all of its characters’ arcs nor resolve the overarching threat in any definitive way. If the series ends here, it would make me ask “what was it all for?” like a television show getting cancelled on a cliffhanger.
Despite Cameron’s words, I don’t think there is a world where films four and five don’t happen. While “Fire and Ash” will make less than “Avatar: The Way to Water,” it is still likely to make a billion dollars. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” made all the money in the world because everyone had to see it since “Star Wars” had been gone for a decade and they wanted to see if it had returned to form. When “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” released, it made less because the people who disliked Force Awakens didn’t feel obligated to see it. Force Awakens was a phenomenon, and Last Jedi was a movie that simply made an ungodly amount of money, which is the same trend as “Way of Water” and “Fire and Ash.”
Disney is investing millions upon millions building a second Avatar land in their California Adventure theme park that is timed to open when the fourth entry in the Avatar saga is scheduled to be released, and I believe that answers the question of if we are getting Avatar Four and Five quite definitively. Not everybody loves these movies but they print money for Disney, and that’s the way big movies go.
