With $430 million in worldwide box office receipts this past weekend, the epic James Cameron film Avatar: The Way of Water had the second-highest global opening of 2022, behind Doctor Strange And The Multiverse of Madness by Marvel. There has been debate on how low this number actually is. To be fair, the film was projected to gross up to $170 million domestically, but the actual domestic take was only $134 million, which is a little underwhelming. Remember that a lot of December releases have a sluggish build. In 2018, Aquaman barely made $1.1 billion domestically on a $67.8 million domestic debut. Avatar, which had a $77 million opening weekend in 2009, eventually became the most popular movie of all time. Currently sitting at $2.92 billion, it outperformed Avengers Endgame when it was rereleased the previous year.
Cameron has started a big blitz press tour for his pricey and ambitious Avatar sequel. He explained how the Avatar movies undoubtedly have an environmental theme during a presentation about the meanings of his films. Additionally, he revealed that he has had discussions regarding restarting the Terminator series. During a side discussion on artificial intelligence and how it might be used in filmmaking on the Smartless podcast with Sean Hayes, Will Arnett, and Jason Bateman, Will Arnett asked Cameron if he sought to include messages into his work.
Cameron stated, "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."
Cameron only said that, but it is unquestionably novel. With Terminator: Genisys and Terminator: Dark Fate, Cameron has been working on the Terminator franchise for years. Cameron recently talked about his regrets for recasting Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Dark Fate, which reputedly made a loss of $120 million. Since the follow-up, Terminator: Judgement Day, he hasn't directed a Terminator movie, but he has been connected with the series ever since.
Cameron seems unable to let the Terminator series come to a close, and even the director of Dark Fate frequently remarked on how difficult it was to work together.
Maybe Cameron might think about it given the failure of all the films produced without him serving as director. While he ostensibly has five Avatar movies to deal with, Cameron might also be talking about simply producing a new picture, as he has done for the last few versions.
Although Cameron has claimed that The Way of Water needs to earn $2 billion to break even, it is clear that these movies need a lot of money to be profitable. This podcast contains a brief update on Avatar 3. Although Cameron says the timing is getting closer, the VFX process takes time. "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" said Cameron
From that, we don't think there we'll be going to watch Terminator soon. Please share your thoughts in the comments section! Do you anticipate Avatar 3 and like Avatar: The Way Of Water? Would you be in favor of Cameron assuming the helm of a Terminator revival?