James Cameron is once again wondering if he wants to spend the rest of his career on Pandora

“There’s been a lot of momentum in the Avatar universe for me for 21 years at this point because we started in 2005. I took a little time off to build a submersible and dive to the deepest spot on the planet, as you do, but then I came back to Avatar after that,” Cameron said in an interview surrounding his Governor General’s Performing Arts Award that made the rounds this week. “It’s been kind of an unbroken continuum. So this is the point where I’m looking at the landscape and saying, ‘What are the other stories I want to tell? How many of them do I need to direct myself versus writing and/or producing with other film-makers?'”

“I’ve literally mapped this out for myself over the last few weeks. I started with: What will do the most good?” Cameron continued. “I started looking at all the projects that I’m fond of, saying, ‘How’s that going to improve our condition? How’s that going to make the world better for my kids?’ And it’s that fine line, because you don’t want to be too didactic or shrill about things, and you’ve gotta engage with great stories… about interesting characters.” 

Cameron says that he’s in a “liminal state of mapping out the last act” of his career and hasn’t made these decisions yet. “I don’t know if the last act is a year or 20 years, we’ll see,” he says. This isn’t the first time he’s publicly indicated that he might pass the baton, either; back in 2024, he said that he’d “probably be handing the baton” should we ever get to a sixth trip to Pandora.