'Conjuring' director makes major statement on 'Avatar' franchise

Avatar, as a franchise, is 15 years old. With two more installments to go, James Wan, best known for directing The Conjuring, says he likes to direct it.

"I have not done Avatar, he tells Screen Rant, "Yeah, if you could put a good one for me with James Cameron, I'd love to take a crack at that."

But perhaps James Cameron is not ready to pass the baton. "Absolutely not," he told Matt Belloni in response to whether he would hand over the franchise to another director.

He further shared, “I don't think there'd ever be a version where there's another Avatar movie that I didn't produce closely. But in terms of it taking over my life, you know, that's a threshold issue for me."

However, the Titanic director says he is open to leaving the franchise if Fire and Ash does not deliver the expected box-office performance.

"I've been in Avatar land for 20 years. Actually, 30 years, because I wrote it in '95, right, but I wasn't working continuously on it for those first 10 years," he continued.

There was a brief flurry of interest in '95, and then everybody said, 'You're out of your mind,' and I shelved it for 10 years, and then we got serious in 2005. Yeah, absolutely. Sure, if this is where it ends, cool."

Avatar: Fire and Ash, meanwhile, crossed the billion-dollar mark at the global box office, expectedly leading to a pathway to Avatar 4, which will hit cinemas on Dec 21, 2029.