from the cover story on D'Maro's ascension
https://variety.com/2026/film/features/disney-ceo-josh-damaro-star-wars-marvel-ai-1236671533/
2022 quote comes from a GQ profile of Cameron
Nothing would work the first time Cameron and the production tried it. Or the second. Or usually the third. One day in Wellington, New Zealand, where Cameron was finishing the film, he showed me a single effects shot, numbered 405. “That means there’s been 405 versions of this before it gets to me,” he said. Cameron has been working on the movie since 2013; it was due out years ago. In September, he still wasn’t done. The Way of Water was expensive to make—How expensive? “Very fucking,” according to Cameron, who told me [Cameron had] informed the studio that the film represented “the worst business case in movie history.” In order to be profitable, he’d said, “you have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history. That’s your threshold. That’s your break even.”
Of course, films 2 & 3 were produced together and it really looks like covid caused some cost surges in NZ spending. Still, both sources align to place breakeven well above $1B.
I still suspect the intended reading of the 2022 quote is that you'd need to clear ~1.5/1.6B to be profitable despite the literal reading being $2B. Essentially, while some films made 2B WW, pre-Christmas 2021, there's just a very large gap between those 5 films and the next group ($1.67B,$1.62B, $1.52,$1.51B) w/ another 6 films grossing above $1.3B and below $1.5B.
by SilverRoyce
15 Comments
Cameron decided he wasn’t directing 4 or 5 a long time ago. It’s been an open secret at Lightstorm that he no longer wanted to do it without Jon Landau.
The smaller box office for 3 (for Avatar standards) is the perfect excuse for him to bow out and move on to other things.
You simply can’t reconcile public on the record statements by Cameron and others or private anonymous statements like the one listed above with the idea Avatar 2 or 3 only had a cost of $300M or $350M (though Deadline’s reporting on Avatar 2 claimed Cameron gets 20% off the top [scales higher at some levels]).
That being said “losing hundreds of millions” feels like a red flag and makes me wonder if this is a claim purely about theatrical revenue (minus cameron’s 20%) v. budget + marketing.
that quote was old
I don’t think 4 and 5 will happen.
It’s kind of interesting how we get all these articles and concerns about Avatar 3 making 1.5 billion on a 500M total budget not being profitable while something like Superman form WB is portrayed as a massive success making 600M on a 300M total
Budget.
I think they shot almost all of the principal photography for Avatar 2 and 3 at the same time, and the “breakeven” point for Avatar 2 means it essentially paid for most of Avatar 3 as well. If you combine the two box offices of 2 + 3, the movies made plenty of money.
The drop for 3 likely means Cameron is done with the franchise I would guess, which makes sense. A nice three movie trilogy is pretty common for franchises
>Cameron, who told me [Cameron had] informed the studio that the film represented “the worst business case in movie history.” In order to be profitable, he’d said, “you have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history. That’s your threshold. That’s your break even.”
How many times is this quote gonna be misunderstood and taken out of context? It was an old quote, just a few years after Avatar 1 was released. At that time, the 3rd highest grossing film was around $1.3- $1.4 billion, not $2 billion.
Heck, [Cameron refuted this](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/zx21sj/james_cameron_refutes_the_rumor_that_avatar_needs/) false rumor after Avatar 2’s release, and clarified it should be the 10th highest grossing film at the time to profit.
Yeah, people get defensive about framing Av3’s box office as “only” $1.5 billion, but there’s no denying that interest in the franchise has waned significantly. In a way it’s an ideal situation for letting a franchise quietly fade out, still profitable enough for a positive media narrative, but internally I imagine they feel like a 4th one is a legit flop risk at this point.
Avatar 3 coat 350-400 milion to make. Which means it needed 875 miliom-1 billion to breakeven. It will be fine and will get even more profits in the post theatrical release.
Honestly until its officialy confirmed to not be happening all these speculations is just pointless and attract some of the worst kinds of discusions.
We should know soon enough anyways if the plan was to actually have 4 out by 2029.
2 incorporated a lot of the costs of 3 as well, so I could see the budget being more like $600M with A3 “only” being $300M. Covid costs were crazy too so it could be even higher
At this rate 4 will not be very profitable.
20% reduction from 1 to 2
35% reduction from 2 to 3
4 will break even barely and 5 will lose a little bit of money but make it up with ancillaries.
they filmed so much of these movies together at the same time. I think most of the water scenes for fire and ash were filmed in 2017/18 when the filmed Way of Water. And they have even shot parts of 4 already. I think that is why part 2 had to make sooo much money. Im sure hollywood accounting is a reason why the budget for fire and ash is stated as big as it is, but my understand is that alot of it was filmed concurrently with way of water.
I think it was all filmed together over 18 months, and then they shot bits of the movie recently.
[https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/griff-griffin/avatar-fire-and-ash-is-shorter-than-avatar-the-way-of-water](https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/a/griff-griffin/avatar-fire-and-ash-is-shorter-than-avatar-the-way-of-water)
> Of course, films 2 & 3 were produced together
It is covered in one of the interviews somewhere – they were originally the same film but if got too long – hence the repetitive beats.
What was 3 became 4.
True. Avatar 3 was awful