For decades, the Avatar series has been the passion project of James Cameron. He started writing Avatar in 1994, and he’s been hard at work on Avatar’s many sequels since the release of the original film in 2009. In 2022, we’re finally starting to see the breadth of this franchise with the release of Avatar: The Way of Water, and with Avatar sequels planned every two years, we’re only beginning to see what Cameron has in store for this universe.

Cameron is the captain behind this massive Avatar ship, and it’s hard to imagine what this world would be like without him at the helm. But in an interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Cameron discussed the possibility of handing over future productions to someone else, and what another director would have to learn when it comes to bringing Avatar to life.

When asked about what he would need to see in another director to allow them to take over this world, Cameron said:

“I think there are a lot of good filmmakers out there and a lot of good filmmakers that understand how to do CG and animation and world-building and all that sort of thing. I think that what I would look for is somebody that is willing to be humble before the specific craft of how you make one of these films. Because it’s taken us, at this point, 16 years to figure it out, and we’re still learning day to day. So it would take time to transfer that knowledge.”

Sam Worthington and Sigorney Weaver in Avatar the Way of Water
Image via Disney

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While Cameron is synonymous with Avatar at this point, he’s certainly worked in existing franchises or handed these worlds off to other people before. After co-writing and directing The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the series continued without him for years, with him returning twenty-eight years later to work on the story for 2019's Terminator: Dark Fate, which he also produced. Of course, Cameron also directed 1986’s Aliens, taking the reins from Ridley Scott after 1979’s Alien. Even though it seems impossible for Cameron to not be associated with this series, there is a precedent for these universes existing without him.

Even though Cameron wants to continue this series for the foreseeable future, he does think it would be good to have a plan for the future:

“But, I think, in respect to the studio that’s writing these massive checks to create this world, this persistent world, I think it’s good for us to have at least some kind of a plan to hand that over. I mean, nobody lives forever, and I might get sick, somebody in my family might get sick, I might have to step back. And I don’t want that to be the case obviously, I want to do all five of them myself. I think it would be good to have some kind of a plan in place to be able to turn the reins over.”

Cameron is such a distinctive filmmaking voice, it’s hard to imagine who could take his place, especially with the world of Pandora that is very much his child. But with Disney now owning 20th Century Fox, it makes sense that the company would want to have a plan in place in case something does happen to Cameron. With multiple sequels on the way, and Pandora represented in the theme parks, Avatar is going to be going for a long time—with or without Cameron. But here’s hoping that Cameron gets the opportunity to see his vision through to the end.

Avatar: The Way of Water comes to theaters on December 16. Watch the most recent trailer below and stay tuned for our full interview later this week: