The epic James Cameron movie Avatar: The Way of Water is currently playing in theaters, and it had the second-highest global opening of 2022, after Doctor Strange And The Multiverse of Madness, with $430 million in worldwide box office receipts this past weekend. There has been discussion about how this is a low figure, disappointing, or whatever. To be fair, the movie was tracking to as much as $170 million domestically, but it only made $134 million in North America, which is a bit low. It's important to keep in mind that many December releases have a slow build. In 2018, Aquaman only had a $67.8 million domestic opening and made $1.1 billion. With a $77 million opening weekend in 2009, Avatar went on to become the most successful film of all time. ow resting at $2.92 billion, surpassing Avengers Endgame last year during its re-release.
For his expensive and ambitious Avatar sequel, Cameron has embarked on a massive blitz press tour. In a talk on the meanings in his films, he detailed how the Avatar movies surely have a theme of the environment. He also disclosed that he has had conversations about reviving the Terminator franchise. Will Arnett asked Cameron if he tried to integrate messages into his film during a tangential discussion on artificial intelligence and how it might be used in filmmaking on the Smartless podcast with Sean Hayes, Will Arnett, and Jason Bateman.
He responded, "well, the Avatar films are about the environment; I'm not dealing with AI. If I were to do another Terminator film and maybe try and to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided... I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy."
That was all Cameron had to say about it, but it is undoubtedly new. Cameron has been involved in the "Terminator" series for years, attempting to relaunch it with Terminator: Genisys and Terminator: Dark Fate. Cameron recently mentioned on the topic of Dark Fate the regrets in deciding to bring back Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger when the film reportedly lost $120 million. He hasn't directed a Terminator film since the sequel, Terminator: Judgement Day, but he has been involved in the series since
Cameron seemed unable to let the Terminator franchise end, and even the director of Dark Fate has often mentioned how challenging it was to collaborate.
Given the failure of all the movies made without him directing, maybe Cameron would consider it. However, Cameron could also be talking about simply producing a new movie, as he has done for the last few iterations, and he ostensibly has five Avatar films to deal with.
Cameron has stated that The Way of Water needs to make $2 billion in order to break even, but it is obvious that these films require a large sum of cash in order to be successful. A brief update on Avatar 3 can be found in this podcast. Cameron claims that the time is drawing near, but the VFX work takes time. He said, "We're just about done, and we're just mixing the last two of reels... I've seen a cut of the movie, but the effects still need to be completed. The production of a movie, which is otherwise entirely shot and edited, takes roughly two years."
Let us hear what you think in the comments! Did you like Avatar: The Way Of Water and look forward to Avatar 3? Would you supportf Cameron taking lead on a Terminator reboot?