James Cameron trying to slash budgets for final Avatar films

James Cameron is hoping to cut costs for his next Avatar movies.

The 71-year-old filmmaker released the third film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, last year and while he still has plans for the fourth and fifth movies in the franchise, they haven't officially been green lit but he is working on a way to make them “in half the time for two thirds of the cost” of the previous installments.

He added on The Empire Film Podcast: “After that, I’m like Roadrunner going off a cliff.

“I’ll be doing some writing, I’ve got a number of projects I’m cooking. And Avatar 4 and 5 are still floating out there.

“We’re gonna be looking at some new technologies to try and do them more efficiently, because they’re hideously expensive and take a long time. I want to do them in half the time for two thirds of the cost, that’s my metric. And so, it’s going to take us a year or so to figure out how to do that. And in the meantime, I’ll be writing and probably be doing a couple of other things.”

With the fate of the film series up in the air, the Titanic filmmaker previously promised to hold a press conference to reveal the plot details of Avatar 4 if the franchise is cancelled.

He told Entertainment Weekly: “I don’t know if the saga goes beyond this point. I hope it does. But, you know, we prove that business case every time we go out… If we don’t get to make 4 and 5, for whatever reason, I’ll hold a press conference and I’ll tell you what we were gonna do. How’s that?”

Disney currently has Avatar 4 on its calendar for 2029, with Avatar 5 set for release in 2031.

The Oscar-winning director would also love to turn the stories into novels but claims that will not be viable as “people aren't reading” anymore.

He said: “There's so much culture and backstory and lateral detail in these characters that's been worked out. I'd love to do something that's at that level of granular detail.

"There's no business model for it anymore. People aren't reading.

“But anyway, it might be good to have the canonical record of what it was all supposed to be.”

Avatar: Fire and Ash continues the story of the Sully family, led by Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña).

The film also features Sigourney Weaver as Kiri, Britain Dalton as Lo'ak, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss as Tuk, and Jack Champion as Spider, along with Stephen Lang as Quaritch, Kate Winslet as Ronal, Cliff Curtis as Tonowari and Bailey Bass as Tsireya.