Why We're Worried About Avatar 2

Released in 2009, James Cameron's Avatar is far and away the highest-grossing film of all time, and even with the revival of the Star Wars films and the ridiculous string of blockbuster hits being churned out by Marvel Studios, it's not likely to lose the title soon — if ever. Only Cameron's previous effort Titanic ($2.1 billion worldwide) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($2.06 billion) have even come within shouting distance of Avatar's staggering $2.7 billion run. Yet there seems to be no rush getting the obligatory sequels into theaters. 

Last year, release dates were finally announced for the next films in Cameron's planned series, with Avatar 2 hitting screens on December 18, 2020. But if that bit of news slipped by you, it may be because the public's appetite for a continuation of Avatar's story may not be as ravenous as Cameron thinks — and because one massively successful film, even the most successful ever, may not necessarily translate to an equally successful franchise. Here's why we're more than a little concerned about Avatar 2.

It's easy to forget that the vast majority of the hype surrounding Avatar leading up to its release had to do not with a groundbreaking story or amazing cast, but the technology involved. It was posited as the first movie to treat 3D not as a gimmick, but as a serious storytelling tool — and speculation about the film prior to its release focused largely on the brand new 3D technology and insanely detailed CGI that the film would employ. It promised a whole new technological world of filmmaking, and it largely delivered. But in doing so, it may have failed to give audiences a story and characters that they could connect with.

This is evidenced by the fact that in the years since its release, Avatar simply hasn't become the kind of cultural phenomenon that one would expect from a movie that outgrossed every single Star Wars film. The one detail that seems to have lodged in the public consciousness is "big blue cat people having weird sex"; none of the characters have become cultural icons a la Luke Skywalker or Iron Man (and many moviegoers would be hard-pressed to name one), and when it comes to sales of tie-in merchandise, Avatar isn't even in the top ten. Indeed, the film seems to have become diminished in the popular consciousness in a way that few bona fide blockbusters have, and the fact that there was an extremely well-worn narrative behind all of the technological wonder may have had something to do with it.

Even though it's not clear that there's significant interest on the part of the moviegoing public in another Avatar, it's still safe to say that greenlighting a sequel to the all-time box office king isn't a huge gamble. Cameron, however, isn't simply delivering a sequel — he's delivering four of them, all with set release dates through 2025, which will be shot back-to-back with a combined budget of $1 billion. This becomes an enormous gamble, not only from a financial but also from a storytelling standpoint.

All of the alleged plagiarism issues aside, Cameron has certainly shown an ability to tell a compelling standalone story. This is the man who gave us The Terminator and Aliens, two of the greatest science-fiction films of all time. He may very well have enough sheer volume of story to fill out four more pictures (although that is questionable; more on this shortly). But what he has not yet demonstrated is the ability to sustain a compelling narrative over three or more films, not to mention the fact that Avatar 2 will be tasked with setting up the next three installments while telling a cohesive story of its own, a difficult feat to pull off. And he'll have to absolutely nail it, because the back-to-back shooting schedule and package deal nature of the budget means that Avatar 2 will shoulder the kind of financial burden that no other film ever has.

As a technical achievement, Avatar is beyond reproach. This, however, can be seen as a bit of a double-edged sword when we remember that its technical marvels were a huge part of the appeal for its initial audiences: we were promised something we'd never seen before, and Avatar came through on that promise. Cameron insists that similar technological breakthroughs will be on display in his sequels, but for today's audiences, that simply might not be enough.

In the years since 2009, franchises such as the MCU and Jurassic World have treated us to all manner of CGI wonders, meaning that it'll be tough for Avatar 2 to find new ground to break in that regard. Also, there's Cameron's troubling reliance on 3D; he has said that he's still "very bullish" on the format, and there's even been speculation that he's working on a way to deliver the experience sans glasses. The trouble is that, in recent years, ticket sales for 3D screenings have dropped like a rock—from about 20% of ticket sales in 2010 to 14% in 2016. Even IMAX theaters have drastically reduced their 3D slate, citing the "clear preference" of consumers for 2D. Simply put: groundbreaking CGI and industry-leading 3D, two enormous factors which helped put butts in seats for Avatar in 2009, will be virtual non-factors in 2020, meaning Avatar 2 will have to stand on its own merits. 

For over a decade between 1986 and 1997, James Cameron utterly ruled the box office. Cameron sitting in the director's chair virtually guaranteed a smash hit: from Aliens to Terminator 2: Judgment Day to True Lies, his name meant box office gold. This culminated with Titanic, still the #2 highest-grossing film ever, which won him a slew of Oscars and prompted him to famously proclaim himself "King of the World." What many seem to forget is that, a pair of IMAX documentaries notwithstanding, Titanic was the last film Cameron made prior to Avatar, and today, his name is nowhere near the guarantor of success that it once was.

Indeed, Cameron today finds himself in a filmmaking landscape very different from the one he ruled during his '90s heyday, or even the one in which the original Avatar found its perfect storm of success. Critically-acclaimed, big-budget franchises have risen to dominate Hollywood in that time, and Avatar's sequels will find themselves up against the kind of competition that literally didn't exist when the first film was released. Namely, Avatar 2 will run up against the sure-fire hits being pumped out every few months by the juggernaut that is Disney.

Originally, only a single sequel to Avatar got the greenlight from the studio, which as previously noted was a given considering the original's success. But Cameron then started envisioning the story as a trilogy, and before long the creative process seemed to get completely out of hand. Speaking with Variety, Cameron unknowingly issued perhaps the most ominous sign yet with regard to the sequels' quality: "The Avatar story arc was originally meant to be a trilogy, but I overwrite, and my writers overwrote as well," he said. "But basically the first of the sequels cloned itself and became two films, so now it's four films. And the studio's very happy with it. They have an opportunity to make more money, but it's also an opportunity to spend a lot more money, too, so there's a clench factor."

And that, in a nutshell, is why Avatar 2 and its sequels should raise some serious red flags: they're big-budget gambles, a return to a world which has taken no hold in the public imagination, with their questionable story stretched across far more films than should be needed to tell it. For evidence as to how well that works, ask Peter Jackson about his experience on the Hobbit trilogy.