James Cameron on ‘Avatar’ losing the box office crown to ‘Avengers: Endgame’: “It gives me a lot of hope”
Marvel Studios(LOS ANGELES) — Considering his reputation for being competitive, you’d be forgiven for thinking James Cameron might be upset that his movie Avatar lost its long-held box office crown to Avengers: Endgame. Turns out the opposite is true.
“It gives me a lot of hope,” Cameron told Deadline.
“Avengers: Endgame is demonstrable proof that people will still go to movie theaters,” the Titanic Oscar winner explains to Deadline.
“The thing that scared me most about making Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 was that the market might have shifted so much that it simply was no longer possible to get people that excited about going and sitting in a dark room with a bunch of strangers to watch something.”
Avatar 2 is slated to hit theaters December 17 of 2021, with Avatar 3 arriving on December 22, 2023.
If those do well, there are two more on the docket, scheduled for 2024 and 2027. But Cameron knows it’s potentially a heavy lift.
“Will Avatar 2 and 3 be able to create that kind of success in the zeitgeist? Who knows. We’re trying. Maybe we do, maybe we don’t, but the point is, it’s still possible.”
Cameron feared that “streaming services and all the different platforms” would have made going to the theater obsolete. Endgame‘s success, he feels, proves that’s not true — for now.
21st Century Fox, which produced Avatar, is now a part of Disney, ABC’s parent company; Marvel Studios is also owned by Disney.
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