The world of the Na’vi might be expanding into the small screen, per director James Cameron, who recently opened up about his plans to take the franchise to animated territory, with an anthology series and possibly a feature.
Speaking to Empire ahead of the Dec. 19 release of the much-anticipated Avatar: Fire and Ash, the three-time Oscar winner discussed how Avatar — already expanded into video games and a theme park at Walt Disney World — could explore further backstory, an idea he’s already broached with Disney.
“I said, ‘Look, I want to do an animated anthology series that’s essentially in the world, but stories that you wouldn’t have expected from that world,’” the Titanic helmer explained. “There might even be an animated feature in there — it might be a feature for streaming, or a theatrical feature.”
Cameron cited other examples of animated adaptations that drew from existing films, such as The Matrix: “A good early example is The Animatrix, where they went afield in the Matrix world. These are all great examples for how we can add texture and baroque detail to the world of Avatar.” As such, these projects could offer “backstory on characters and tangential stuff that happened off-camera within the movies. Who first landed on Pandora? The first expedition. You could go anywhere you want.”
However, considering the followup to 2022’s gargantuan The Way of Water has been taking up a significant chunk of the filmmaker’s time, Cameron said the animated entries are still in early stages of development.
“We haven’t done much with that yet,” he said. “We’re still gathering our stories and that sort of thing, and I’ve got to find the boutique filmmakers, the animators, that want to do it.”
A first trailer for Fire and Ash dropped last week, after debuting on silver screens ahead of The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Combined, the Avatar movies have grossed $5.24 billion, with the first 2009 entry remaining the highest-grossing movie ever with $2.92 billion.