It has been nearly eleven years since the debut of James Cameron's Avatar, and ever since then, we've been promised a sequel, something that has been pushed back time and time again. As audiences have been waiting, the visionary director has gone on to announce three more films, making the Avatar franchise a five-film saga when all is said and done. But that comes at a cost, the production costs of the next four films alone will be a whopping $1 billion.
In addition to reporting how the Avatar sequels may commence filming in New Zealand next month, Deadline has also revealed the price of the sequels so far - $1,000,000,000 in production costs, and that is not even accounting for marketing budget following post-production. This makes the budget of each film at least $250 million, making these sequels some of the most expensive films of all time. But to be fair, this is no surprise due to the massive scale of James Cameron's imagination. The question is whether this giant bet will be worth it in the end.
Will audiences still be invested in Pandora 12+ years after the first film hit theaters? Is the first film really that beloved to justify 4 films worth 250 million each? Who knows. But if there's one thing audiences have learned during the duration of his career, it's to always bank on Cameron.