The Avatar Sequels' Budget Sounds Absolutely Wild

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The Avatar Sequels' Budget Sounds Absolutely Wild

For a decade, James Cameron’s Avatar was the highest-grossing movie of all time, until Avengers: Endgame dethroned the sci-fi epic last spring. In anticipation for repeated success for the franchise moving forward, the filmmaker has four sequels in the works with 20th Century Studios. Cameron is currently in the thick of filming Avatar 2 and 3 back-to-back ahead of their planned releases in 2021 and 2023.

 

Avatar earned $2.79 billion back in 2009 off a reported production budget of around $237 million, per Box Office Mojo. Well, the coming sequels will evidently cost over $1 billion, according to Deadline. Alright, did they actually build Pandora? That budget sounds absolutely bonkers. Now the numbers are not specific about how many sequels are being lumped into that number, but James Cameron has four planned out.

By simple math, each Avatar sequel would then cost about $250 million each. That is very much in the neighborhood of the original Avatar and tentpole blockbusters from the Avengers, Harry Potter, The Hobbit and Dark Knight franchises. Unless that's somehow only for the first two sequels?

 
Avatar is now under the umbrella of Disney, and the studio has had its share of astronomical budgeted films. 2011’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was the most expensive film ever made at $397 million, and 2012 flop John Carter cost the studio $263 million to make. Back in 2017, Fox Chairman and CEO claimed the upcoming Avatar sequels would be “the most expensive movies of all time.”
 
Avatar 2 and 3 were in the middle of production in New Zealand before global health concerns sent James Cameron and the Avatar cast and crew packing. Cameron has continued to work on virtual production on his big-budget sequels in Los Angeles and Weta Digital. He is confident the movies can continue sooner than later thanks to New Zealand’s hold on the health crisis. Here’s his recent update: CINEMA BLEND 
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