Why Avatar Matters

Avatar: Fire and Ash is the latest entry in James Cameron's science-fiction epic, yet its biggest struggle is against an industry hostile to it.

Varang, one of the main antagonists of Avatar: Fire and Ash

With the release of Avatar: Fire and Ash, James Cameron has delivered an inspirational boon to a struggling film-making industry, and shows yet again why he's the king of the box office. Despite critics' complaints about cultural relevancy or being narratively derivative and bland, there's plenty to be excited about when a new Avatar film releases. Not only for the technical innovations each film makes, but for how it shows a way forward through the rough waters cinema currently sails.

Avatar's release in 2009 showed just how far computer generated imagery had come and told film studios that facial motion capture technology was something to invest in. It created photo-realistic CG images and presented them in stunning 3D that made Pandora feel alive, catapulting it to the highest grossing film of all time. The Way of Water required huge leaps in underwater motion capture technology, lending to a 13 year gap between films. The result is a film that feels like a juggling act between ocean documentary and science fiction epic. Fire and Ash has advanced 3D filming technology that will undoubtedly be used for other purposes in the years to come. These technical innovations alone would make Avatar exciting, but it doesn't stop there.

Stereoscopic 3D camera rig used for Avatar: Fire and Ash

It's important to consider just how unique Avatar is within the modern cinematic landscape. Avatar is an expensive multi-billion dollar franchise by Disney with no pre-existing source material. That is a unicorn in a film industry where the past 15 years have seen the highest grossing films be sequels, prequels, reboots, or some other adaptation of an intellectual property. Most of the original films we see today are small indie productions that get green-lit and excel because of their comparatively low budgets, such as Weapons, lending to an overall higher return on investment¹. So to see Avatar succeed at the box office is exciting because it shatters the conventional wisdom of what does and does not work in an industry that pushes micro and macro budget productions to ensure maximum profits.

Now all these factors that make Avatar exciting are also what makes it rare. It is a  prohibitively expensive movie with no source material, and that makes it a huge risk, one that profit driven Hollywood is hesitant to take on, but such is the nature of risk. Instead, Hollywood would rather spend their billions of dollars on safe known quantities that are guaranteed box office gold to ensure a return on investment. Therein lies the paradoxical nature of Hollywood. In order for big expensive movies to be made, they have to be safe, but if it's safe then all that money's poorly spent. While Avatar's budget is enough to make any major studio balk, it has never been at risk for box office failure. At time of writing, these three movies have collectively grossed 5 billion dollars, making James Cameron the only director to have made four films that grossed one billion dollars.² So why approve Avatar for production? Perhaps it is because James Cameron himself is the safe bet that Disney is willing to throw their weight behind these films. Cameron has always been innovative with his films, and with the exception of two films, they all performed well at the box office.

James Cameron has made three of the five highest grossing films of all time.

Hollywood's risk aversion is to some degree practical. Film-making is unfortunately a for profit business, and not every blockbuster can be profitable. Studios being selective with what projects get approved makes sense. It would however be mistaken to attribute this hesitancy to concern for the bottom line. Major Hollywood studios seem more than happy to put their money towards AI investment, corporate buyouts, and second screen viewing, all of which devalues their movies and worsens the cinematic landscape for everyone else, from the filmmaker to the theatergoer. After all, why go to the theater when you can stay at home? But Avatar stands in defiance of this, demanding that it be seen on the largest screen in the most premium format. It doesn’t merely request your attention, but demands it.

This backdrop is what fundamentally makes Avatar exciting. Putting aside whatever the issues these films may have, each individual movie represents hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on something new, be it groundbreaking technology or a story and setting nobody’s ever seen before, and they each casually make a billion dollars. Avatar shatters every piece of conventional wisdom and still manages to come out on top. Avatar is carrying the cinematic torch in the biggest and most expensive way possible, and it’s going strong. Avatar 4 and 5 don't have any signs of delays or cancellations, and I'm personally looking forward to seeing them upon release.

So is Avatar the way forward? Alone, no. However when examined in context, the picture becomes clear. Intellectual property retains its dominant position in Hollywood, but there seems to be a way forward through all the muck. Just a few years ago in 2023, the biggest box office sensation was the double feature Barbie and Oppenheimer, both based on an existing work.³ 2023 also saw Top Gun: Maverick, and it performed quite well. 2024 saw more sequels, but the interesting ones were Dune: Part Two, Twisters, and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. 2025 gave us a plethora of fresh films: Superman, F1: The Movie, Sinners, Weapons, One Battle After Another, and of course Avatar: Fire and Ash. While most of these succeeded at the box office, only Furiosa and One Battle After Another failed, however they still show the way forward when examined alongside their peers. These are all films, most of which from franchises, that all have strong creative visions attached to them and drives them forward into the unknown. They reveal that Hollywood's future, while still prioritizing intellectual property, is to seek the brightest and best talent and give them the reins.

Michael Eisner, former CEO of Disney, is quoted in the book DisneyWar by James B. Stewart as follows:

We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make a statement, but to make money. But to make money, it is often important to make history, to make art, or to make some significant statement. In order to make money, we must always make entertaining movies, and, if we make entertaining movies, at times, we will reliably make history, art, a statement or all three.

Regardless of ones thoughts on Eisner's tenure at Disney, he makes a salient point. Great cinema does not just come from the regurgitation of what's tried and true. It requires risk taking, and sometimes that risk will not pan out. Much of Hollywood today is too afraid of failure to where they avoid pushing the limits at all, and instead feeding audiences what they've already seen, a business model with diminishing returns.

Circling back to Avatar, it is inherently risky in many senses, and each time it profits. Avatar and many of its peers are franchise films, yes, but they are each taking bold steps in their own ways. But because Avatar is technologically innovative, profitable, and a genuine good time to watch, it fastens itself as the tip of the spear in the uphill fight against a system that seeks to destroy itself. Historically, technological advancements were advertised by major studios to pull audiences away from the comfort of television and back into the theater. In that sense, Avatar isn't unique. What does make Avatar unique is that it must lead the fight for cinema against the very studios and executives that allow it to exist.

¹Horror historically thrives on low budgets, often meaning little financial risk is involved.

²The fourth film being Titanic, then the highest grossing film of all time.

³Oppenheimer was based on the biography American Prometheus by Kai Bard and Martin J. Sherwin.