In the December 2022 issue of Total Film (via /Film), James Cameron admits that if "Avatar: The Way of Water" doesn’t do well financially then he might stop making ‘Avatar’ movies after the already-completed third instalment gets released:
"The market could be telling us we're done in three months, or we might be semi-done, meaning: 'Okay, let's complete the story within movie three, and not go on endlessly,' if it's just not profitable ... We're in a different world now than we were when I wrote this stuff, even. It's the one-two punch — the pandemic and streaming. Or, conversely, maybe we'll remind people what going to the theater is all about. This film definitely does that. The question is: how many people give a s*** now?"
The first "Avatar” is the highest-grossing picture of all time worldwide, and one would think that the sequel would also make a lot of money come this December. However, you’d be a fool to think it’ll match the original film's intake.
Fact of the matter is that “Avatar” was released 13 years ago and the cinematic landscape has dramatically changed since then; people’s tastes are different and the pandemic has shape-shifted the whole industry.
However, one has to be excited about the technology Cameron is working on here. “Avatar” did boost the 3D market for a period of time, until it lost all steam, no doubt due to an incalculable amount of films that tried to take advantage of the fad by upgrading their non-3D movies into 3D movies.
You mostly just had a handful of films that honored Cameron’s original vision of 3D art, those included “Gravity,” “Hugo,” “The Walk,” and “The Life of Pi.” If “Avatar” gets people excited again about the medium then it’ll probably be a success.
Netflix and Skydance Animation have also called it quits. The two sides announced Monday that they're ending the animated film deal struck back in 2023, framing it as a mutual decision.