Avatar director James Cameron has signaled that he may be ready to move on from the franchise, as the status of its two planned sequels remains uncertain.

Disney has pencilled in release dates for an Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 over the next five years, but has yet to give the greenlight for production to start. And there are questions over how well these films will perform financially after the waning — but admittedly still enormous — returns for 2025's Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Last year's movie earned $1.4 billion at the box office, a remarkable amount for any film, but around half the money made by the first Avatar ($2.9 billion), and nearly a billion less than Avatar: The Way of Water ($2.3 billion). At the same time, Avatar films are incredibly costly to produce, meaning that they need to earn huge amounts to turn a profit.

With Avatar's future unclear, Cameron has discussed the need to prioritize "other stories" that he wanted to see made during the "last act" of his career. The 71-year-old filmmaker has long had various other ideas for films other than Avatar sequels, though has not directed a non-Avatar blockbuster since 1997's Titanic.

"That's the question of the hour for me," Cameron said in an interview following his receipt of a prestigious Canadian arts award. "There's been momentum in the Avatar universe for 21 years at this point because we started in 2005. I took a little time off to build a submersible and dive to the deepest spot on the planet, as you do, but I came back to Avatar after that. And it's been kind of an unbroken continuum.

"So this is the point where I'm looking at the landscape and asking, 'What are the other stories I want to tell? How many of them do I need to direct myself versus writing and/or producing with other filmmakers?'" he continued.

What are these other stories? Cameron has long discussed adapting Ghosts of Hiroshima, which focuses on the story of a man who survived both bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War 2. Cameron first discussed the project back in 2010 and has continued to show interest, and in 2024 said he hoped he would shoot the film last year (something that did not happen). Other ideas that Cameron has previously discussed include an adaptation of Joe Abercrombie’s dark fantasy book The Devils, plus Terminator and Alita: Battle Angel sequels. Which of these Cameron is considering shooting first, however, remains unclear.

"The criterion — I've literally mapped this out for myself over the last two weeks — I started with, 'What will do the most good?' I put that in block letters at the top," Cameron continued. "And I started looking at all the projects I'm most fond of, asking, 'How's this going to improve our condition? How's that going to make the world better for our kids?'

"I haven't made those decisions yet. I'm still in this liminal state of mapping out... the last act, if you will. And I don't know if that last act will last a year or 20 years."

In April, an update from producer Rae Sanchini stated that the scripts for Avatar 4 and 5 were in hand as the franchise's team continued to move "full speed ahead." But in May, Cameron said he was "looking at some new technologies" to try and get Avatar 4 and 5 made "in half the time for two-thirds of the cost," something that would need to take a year just to figure it out.

Disney has currently scheduled tentative release dates of December 21, 2029 for Avatar 4 and December 19, 2031 for Avatar 5 — but, again, these are just placeholders until plans are made concrete.

Image credit: Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for National Geographic

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social