Much as our own universe is expanding, James Cameron’s Avatar continues to grow in its scope and intent. Currently there are comics and video games that compliment the 2025 movie Avatar: Fire and Ash, bringing us back to Pandora and its conflicted landscape. Now the Academy Award winning director wants to bring this world into a new medium, for a spinoff that sounds line an inspiring way to keep our heads in the stars.
James Cameron Is Looking Into An Avatar Animated Anthology
In talking with Empire Magazine (via Variety), Mr. Cameron has revealed that he wants to take the Avatar series places it hasn’t been before. That may seem like an impossibility, considering how much the franchise has advanced visual technologies; but it’s not the tech that’s the pivot point here. As you’ll read below, it’s actually the medium:
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’. There might even be an animated feature in there – it might be a feature for streaming or a theatrical feature.
It must be said that if James Cameron wants to expand Avatar into animated splendor, he’s at the right studio. As seen by anyone with a Disney+ subscription, the Star Wars saga saw its own storytelling boom through such feats as Star Wars: Visions. That alone is a proof of concept that could win people over, and get imaginations racing.
At the same time, the Titanic director presented his own example of what he’s trying to do here. Anyone unfamiliar with the sort of game that James Cameron brings to the table will surely be wowed by the hat tip I’m about to reveal. Whereas I am positively floored and on board with where this could be going.
I Can’t Argue With The Project That Inspired Avatar’s Anthology
If we’re really going to talk about massive blockbusters crossing mediums in the name of story, we need to talk about The Matrix. What started as an unexpected blockbuster became a franchise that The Wachowskis took to not only video games, but also an animated anthology of its own.
Which makes James Cameron’s recognition of The Animatrix in this next quote a well played, well earned deep cut:
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.
While The Matrix was a mind melting action trilogy on the big screen, The Animatrix showed us everything from the fall of humanity to deeply personal stories about rebellion. (The latter is explored in one of the greatest anthology sequences, entitled “The Second Renaissances Part I and II.”) Using a mixture of styles with each story, hand drawn and computer animated tales existed side by side in a killer anthology feature.
For James Cameron to want to use that model with Avatar is an exciting prospect. Tales of past Na’vi history- including Varang's Fire and Ash heel turn, the ecological decline of Earth, and the formation of the RDA make for compelling side narratives that offer that “texture” to the established canon - all of which Mr. Cameron has probably already thought up in the journey to his magnum opus.
It seems like a huge dream at this point however, as there are still a couple flesh and blood Avatar movies that are still heading out way. The next of course being Avatar: Fire and Ash, which debuted its first trailer, in anticipation of hitting theaters on December 19th.
