James Cameron Has Talked to Disney About Expanding the ‘Avatar’ Franchise Into Animation
As James Cameron prepares to return audiences to Pandora this winter for Avatar: Fire and Ash, the famed director is already considering expanding his beloved franchise in an interesting new direction.
During a recent interview with Empire Magazine, Cameron revealed that he has had discussions with Disney about telling Avatar stories in animation.
Photo: Vulture
“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 Oscar winner said. “There might even be an animated feature in there – it might be a feature for streaming or a theatrical feature.”
The Series Would Explore Pandora’s Backstory
After lying dormant for years, Disney and Cameron revived the Avatar franchise with the release of Avatar: The Way of Water in 2022. The film was a monumental triumph, eventually grossing $2.3 billion in theaters on its way to becoming the third highest-grossing film of all time.
Photo: 21st Century Fox
According to Cameron, the animated story could tell the “backstory on characters and tangential stuff that happened off-camera within the movies,” the filmmaker added. “Who first landed on Pandora? The first expedition. You could go anywhere you want… We haven’t done much with that yet. 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.”
Disney Has Previously Had Success Expanding Franchises Into Animation
While Cameron cited 2003’s The Animatrix as the inspiration behind his potential Avatar anthology series, it should be noted that both Star Wars and Marvel have utilized animation to expand their worlds to great success.
The gold standard for animated tie-ins is Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which not only told some of the franchise’s greatest stories but also fleshed out the prequel era in a way that made fans reanalyze the films.
More recently, Marvel has expanded the MCU with shows like What If…? and the upcoming Eyes of Wakanda.
Photo: Marvel
With the Avatar franchise more popular than ever, an animated anthology series seems like a no-brainer for both Cameron and Disney.
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