Director James Cameron recently shared that he has only five or six movies left in him before he retires, and he said at least three of those will be Avatar sequels. But, there is a chance that the rest of Cameron’s career will be spent making Avatar movies. He may never get to some of those other projects, and if that’s how things play out, the filmmaker is okay with that, and he explains why.
During a recent Q&A with some other directors for Empire magazine, the 68-year-old filmmaker was asked if he would ever feel bad about not being able to tell his other stories outside of the Avatar franchise, and he explained that there’s enough stories and technological breakthroughs for him to develop in the Avatar movies that he doesn’t feel like the franchise is robbing his career of new ideas. He said:
“Two thoughts in answer to your question: the first is that the world of ‘Avatar’ is so sprawling that I can tell most of the stories I want to tell within it and try many of the stylistic techniques that I hope to explore, and secondly, yes… our time as artists is finite. I will always mourn some of the stories that I don’t get to make.”
He went on to talk about how he enjoys working with other filmmakers on projects based on his ideas:
“I feel a great satisfaction when other directors want to explore some of my ideas, like Kathryn Bigelow did with Strange Days, and Robert Rodriguez did when I passed him the baton on Alita: Battle Angel. I look forward to more collaborations in the future with directors I admire.”
So, as a producer, he will still get to play outside of the Avatar universe, and he seems very comfortable with how the rest of his career is going to turn out. He previously said he might pass some Avatar sequels off to other directors, saying:
“I’ve got some other things I’m developing as well that are exciting. I think eventually over time – I don’t know if that’s after three or after four – I’ll want to pass the baton to a director that I trust to take over, so I can go do some other stuff that I’m also interested in. Or maybe not. I don’t know.”
What would you like to see Cameron do as a director over the next ten years? Do you think he’ll stick with Avatar, or do you think he’ll try to do something new and different?