You know you’ve got a good thing going when your most recent movie shattered all box office records on its way to a global haul of almost $2.8 billion, and it’s completely natural that you’ll want to exploit this further. However, Avatar director James Cameron has decided to go one step further, telling the New York Times (via Collider) that he’s ceased development on any non-Avatar projects as his feature filmmaking future now lies solely on the world of Pandora:
“Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the Avatar business. Period. That’s it. I’m making Avatar, Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4, and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts. And that all sounds I suppose a little bit restricted, but the point is I think within the Avatar landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it. And doing it in an entertaining way. And anything I can’t say in that area, I want to say through documentaries, which I’m continuing.”
Cameron has never been the most prolific of filmmakers, directing just seven features – The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, True Lies, Titanic and Avatar – over the last thirty years, and if progress on the Avatar sequels is anything to go by, there doesn’t seem to be much chance of him speeding things up any time soon. Cameron is planning to shoot Avatar 2 and 3 back-to-back and had originally intended to release the first sequel in December 2014, a date that now looks unlikely. So, if he does decide to go ahead with Avatar 4, I guess we can kiss his Battle Angel adaptation goodbye.
Still, on the plus side, it might finally stop Tom Arnold from going on about True Lies 2…
Originally published May 6, 2012. Updated November 29, 2022.
