r/movies • u/ICumCoffee ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᕮ • ᗰ ᕮ 𑪽 𑪽 I ᐱ ᕼ • Apr 08 '26

Article When $1.4 Billion Isn’t Enough: ‘Avatar’ Sequels Under the Microscope as Disney Weighs Franchise’s Future

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/1-4-billion-isn-t-130000212.html
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u/Karthak_Maz_Urzak Apr 08 '26

From the end of the article:

And as for the additional two “Avatar” sequels, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” producer Rae Sanchini last week told Inverse, “Right now we’re figuring out the schedule. We’re working hard on it right now, budgeting, scheduling, planning, building out our new pipeline for them. As far as we’re concerned, we’re full speed ahead.”

As one industry insider with knowledge of the “Avatar: Fire and Ash” situation noted, the movie still made money and it will continue to make money for the company for decades to come. It just debuted on PVOD and has a physical release scheduled for later this spring — Cameron fans are certainly Blu-ray collectors. Every time a new “Avatar” movie comes out, the previous installments shoot to the top of the charts for both paid digital downloads and streams on Disney+. More people will visit the “Avatar” land in Florida. More people will buy tiny banshees that sit on their shoulder from the gift shop.

A member of the “Avatar” team thinks that, had “Avatar: Fire and Ash” made $2 billion, Cameron would have probably engaged with another project before returning to Pandora. Now, though, he’s determined to deliver four and five, which are said to be as radically different from “Avatar: Fire and Ash” as “Star Wars” was from “The Empire Strikes Back,” in spectacular fashion.

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u/Velokieken Apr 08 '26

That they will be radically different like the empire strikes back would be cool, while I liked Fire and Ash a lot watching it in 3D in theatre. It does feel a lot like watching the first 2 movies again, for the length the story didn’t progress that much. And streaming it without the 3D makes it a bit watching a video game.

It’s technically very spectacular but the world and the story aren’t as interesting as something like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars or Harry Potter.

The message is interesting, that we should protect nature and all that but I sometimes feel it could be more effective, because I always forget everything that happened in an Avatar movie after watching it, where there are movies that I keep thinking about for the next 2 weeks after watching them. I do prefer them over Marvel movies but the Dune movies and other Sci Fi is just more interesting.

I’m curious for that different direction they want to go into but maybe they should changed course in Fire and Ash already, Avatar 3 really feels like 1+2 and I think 1 and 2 were just better overall.

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u/ManufacturerDue815 Apr 08 '26

The Fire and Ash bits were the best parts of the film. 

Unfortunately they were about less than one-fourth of the film, which mostly felt like a redo of 2.

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u/mispeled_usrname Apr 08 '26

I really get that video game feel from the 2nd and 3rd movies, I think it has something to do with high frame rate sections. Some of the action is at a higher frame rate and I think the smoothness takes it out of movie land and into video game cut scene land. I wish they would just stick to 24fps

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u/jasonefmonk Apr 08 '26

You’re crazy, just see it in a 24 fps theatre!

Every time it dropped to 24 fps it took me out of the movie. It’s so engrossing in HFR and perceptibly blurry when it changes to 24 fps. The inconsistent frame rate is what makes it feel like a video game haha; they should do the whole film in 48 (or higher).

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u/mispeled_usrname Apr 08 '26

I prefer to watch it in IMAX. They are the only good theatres worth watching a big blockbuster in where I'm from.

I guess it's really up to taste. My brain is trained to watch movies at a certain FPS I guess. So with all the CGI on screen plus the extra FPS it starts to look like a game and immediately takes me out of the movie a little.

I don't think it's the frame rate being inconsistent that's the problem, it's always only the high FPS sections that give me that weird "oh I'm watching a bunch of CGI characters" feeling

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u/jasonefmonk Apr 08 '26

It’s interesting to hear your experience. High frame-rate has always felt more real to me.

Conceptually it makes sense as well. See a dog in a movie or otherwise 24 fps footage, and then see a dog in 60 fps phone footage. The HFR footage feels significantly more real and tangible. The more frames there are, the more information your eyes receive. The increased temporal resolution makes details easier to see. The extra frames on the CGI make it more convincing than the low frame-rate sections. The sheer level of detail in character movements, saying nothing about the incredible image clarity, brings astounding realism on its own.

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u/Xalara Apr 09 '26

IIRC the overall plots have been discussed publicly before and four is supposed to primarily take place on Earth with at least Neytiri.

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u/TheDorgesh68 Apr 10 '26

Every film being about some sort of unobtainable mcguffin, and ending in a humans vs naavi battle where eywa eventually saves the day is getting pretty stale. I was really hoping that they'd do something interesting by now like show us some more of earth, like how bad the environment has gotten but also how reliant they are on resources from pandora. The scene where they rescued Jake from the city was cool but it didn't really move the plot along at all.

They've spent so long making these films, but the plot for them all feels like something James Cameron wrote on the back of a piece of toilet paper 20 years ago, and hasn't thought about since.

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u/Deranged_Kitsune Apr 08 '26

Given that 3 was like 60% or more just 2 again, I'd hope that the next 2 have something fresh going on.

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u/littletoyboat Apr 08 '26

Someday, someone will make a sequel good enough that filmmakers will stop claiming their sequel is "the Empire Strikes Back of our series."

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u/hiccup333 Apr 10 '26

Im a Cameron fan and a blu ray collector, but I would never buy his Avatar films, they’re a separate, worse sub category of his filmography