James Cameron Doesn’t Know If ‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ Will Be A Hit

Even James Cameron has concerns.

Avatar: The Way of Water Star Wars James Cameron

James Cameron isn’t sure if his long-awaited film, Avatar: The Way Of Water will be a hit after such a long delay.

Way back in 2009, James Cameron’s Avatar hit theaters and made history. While some have questioned the narrative quality of the film, it was a massive hit and became the highest-grossing film of all time. After several releases, the movie has maintained that title and has earned over $2.73B worldwide. Some, however, have questioned if a sequel can do comparable numbers or if it will even be able to break even.

Since the first film was released, James Cameron has been working on a sequel to Avatar in some way, shape, or form. After scrapping several scripts, the director instead opted to take the franchise in a longer direction, shooting the second film, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Avatar 3 back to back. The fourth and fifth films were already in development and, despite Cameron saying he might have another director take over the franchise, production has already started on the 4th film. However, even the director isn’t sure if the upcoming movie will be a hit.

James Cameron Admits He May Have Waited Too Long

While speaking to The New York Times, James Cameron admitted that he was concerned that delaying the film for so long would have an adverse effect on the movie. Some of these were alieved when the first trailer garnered nearly 150M views in a day but still couldn’t say for sure:

“I was a little concerned that I had stretched the tether too far, in our fast-paced, modern world, with ‘Avatar 21 coming in 12 years later. Right until we dropped the teaser trailer, and we got 148m million views in 24 hours. There’s that scarce seen but wondered at principle, which is, Wow, we haven’t seen that in a long time, but I remember how cool it was back then. Does that play in our favor? I don’t know. I guess we’re going to find out.”

Here is the synopsis for James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water:

Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, “Avatar: The Way of Water” begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure.

Directed by James Cameron from a script he co-wrote with Josh Friedman, the sequel stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, and Kate Winslet.

Avatar: The Way of Water hits theaters on December 16, 2022. Stay tuned for all the latest news on the upcoming film and be sure to subscribe to Heroic Hollywood’s YouTube channel for more original video content.

Trey Griffeth

Trey Griffeth

Lover of video games, comics, and movies! Writer of all things that involve them!