James Cameron On ‘Avatar: Teh Fire and Ash’ Box Office & The Future Of The Franchise

“I am always on pins and needles before a film opens. It is less about the reviews for me than whether people show up or not,” James Cameron told me when I interviewed him about the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Surprising? I thought so,coming from a man whose films have grossed more $8 billion and hold three of the four spots in the top-grossing films of all time with Avatar at No. 1, Avatar: The Way of Water third and Titanic fourth, after being No. 1 for a generation.So wondering if people are going to show up is indeed a bit surprising, but until he sees how the new film plays out over the holidays and into the new year is something he demands before committing to doing a fourth in the series – even if the stories and scripts are completed for the initially planned five-part franchise.

Well, the film opened Friday and earned $89 million over the weekend and has about $347 million worldwide. Not bad,but Cameron knows the cost of these films is enormous,and he is cautious about giving the next one a green light even though they have shot some footage with the kids from Fire and Ash but only as as he says the next film will take a big leap in time. He looks at these most recent two Avatars (shot simultaneously) as kind of his Dune 1 and 2*. The next two – “should we get to make them” he says – would be another completely different set of two films.

Cameron joins me for this week’s episode of my Deadline video series *Behind the Lens to talk about a wide variety of things, beginning with Titanic, which with is tied for most oscar nominations ever (14) and most Oscar wins with 11. He says his inspiration was David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago, a love story set against a big canvas. He talks ab