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Avatar: The Way of Water became the third highest-grossing movie of all time, and now all eyes are on Avatar 3, 4, and 5. However, there will be a long wait for these films as they have all been delayed. Disney is not rushing into sequels following the massive success of Avatar 2.
As per a new report from Variety, Disney has delayed almost all of its major upcoming franchise movies. The entire schedule for Star Wars and the MCU was moved. Avatar 3 moved from December 20, 2024, to December 19, 2025. Meanwhile, Avatar 4 moved from December 18, 2026, to December 21, 2029. The final Avatar movie got pushed from December 22, 2028, to December 19, 2031.
Why Avatar 3, 4, and 5 have got new release dates
Most of the recent MCU changes happened due to the WGA Writer’s Strike. However, that has nothing to do with Avatar 3, 4, and 5’s delays. Avatar 2 and 3 were shot back-to-back, and a part of Avatar 4 has also been shot. These delays have mainly happened for two reasons!
First, James Cameron and co need more time. Years went into perfecting the CGI of the last two Avatar movies. They needed the most VFX shots as the majority of the characters involved are completely computer generated. With Avatar 3 introducing the Fire Na’vi clan, we’d see even more CGI characters and locations get introduced.
So, Disney is giving the VFX teams involved with Avatar 3 an extra year. As for Avatar 4 and 5, James Cameron is getting more time to complete the filming, which could begin in the next two years. We even expect Cameron to finish shooting the last two movies back-to-back so that the leftover years until 2029 and 2031 could be devoted to CGI.
The second major reason for delays is that Disney understands the situation in the industry, which is oversaturated with franchise movies. Many franchises, including Fast and Furious and DC, have shown diminishing returns over time.
Meanwhile, a part of Avatar’s appeal is that the sequels take a lot of time to arrive. 13 years after the first one, the second one was done right. Meanwhile, we got several rereleases of the first one. So Fox and Disney continued to make money from it.
With the recent delays, Disney won’t just provide the creatives with ample time to get the quality of the sequels right, but it’ll also make the audience crave them. Every upcoming Avatar movie will be turned into a mega event that may deliver at least $2 billion.
Why the Avatar sequels would have failed under Fox
Before Disney acquired Fox, Avatar 2 & 3 were scheduled to hit theaters on December 18, 2020, and December 17, 2021, respectively. As for Avatar 4 & 5, Fox slated them to arrive on December 20, 2024, & December 19, 2025, respectively.
However, after seeing how much time Avatar 2 took to be made, it’s clear that Fox’s deadlines were next to impossible. The quality that James Cameron wanted to deliver with these films could not have been achieved. Hence, the franchise would have surely delivered diminishing returns, and Avatar 2 may not have been as big as it turned out to be.
Disney isn’t getting greedy and is allowing each Avatar sequel the breathing room it needs. So, we can be sure that the Avatar movies won’t fall prey to oversaturation.
