James Cameron as long been one of the most dominant forces at the box office, as he’s the only director in history to helm four $1 billion blockbusters. But over the course of his career, Cameron hasn’t just achieved commercial success. His films have also broken through on the awards circuit. While it’s common for big-budget studio tentpoles to receive nominations in technical categories, Cameron’s movies have been able to crack Best Picture lineups. Heading into this award season, three consecutive Cameron films were in the running for the Academy’s top prize (Titanic, which one; Avatar; and Avatar: The Way of Water). Given that track record, people were curious to see if Avatar: Fire and Ash could keep the streak going.
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Unfortunately, Cameron’s personal Best Picture streak has officially ended. Today, the nominations for the 2026 Oscars were announced, and Avatar: Fire and Ash was not among the 10 films nominated for Best Picture. The sci-fi threequel earned just a pair of nods: Best Visual Effects and Best Costume Design. Based on how Fire and Ash is holding up at the box office, another Cameron streak could be coming to an end as well.
Avatar: Fire and Ash Will Likely End James Cameron’s Box Office Streak
Fire and Ash made a bit of box office history by giving Cameron four straight movies to top $1 billion, but it’s probably going to fall short of a different mark. To illustrate just how big of a box office draw Cameron has been for the past few decades, his last three films before Fire and Ash all earned over $2 billion worldwide (Titanic needed re-releases to get there, while the first two Avatar installments hit that mark during their original runs). Though Fire and Ash is one of the highest-grossing movies of 2025, it is lagging behind its predecessors in terms of total gross. As of this writing, it’s made $1.329 billion globally.
Since Fire and Ash has been in theaters for over a month now and business is starting to slow down, it seems unlikely it’ll hit $2 billion. In order to accomplish that feat, it would have to earn over $640 million from this point, which doesn’t seem realistic. Through 33 days, Fire and Ash has earned $369.6 million domestically. At that same point in their respective runs, the original Avatar had made $509 million (finishing with $749.7 million) and The Way of Water grossed $574.4 million (en route to a $684 million total). Fire and Ash is trailing those two by a significant amount, so unless there’s an unforeseen surge that catapults it past $2 billion, it will go down as the lowest-grossing Avatar movie by a considerable margin.
It perhaps wasn’t surprising to see Fire and Ash underwhelm at the Oscars. The film received a lukewarm critical reception and has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score in the franchise. While people remain impressed with the state-of-the-art visual effects, this time around, the storytelling shortcomings stood out more, as Fire and Ash was criticized for retreading familiar territory and featuring some problematic elements. The passion and enthusiasm that sparked the first two to Best Picture nominations wasn’t there. That, combined with the box office performance, is perhaps a sign that the Avatar franchise should take a break before the fourth and fifth films are made.
Nothing is official yet, but Cameron has been open about possibly putting the franchise on hold as he irons out more effective ways to make the massive sci-fi epics. A hiatus could be for the best. Narratively, the series seems to be in a bit of a creative rut, so taking extra time to fine-tune scripts and find a new angle could benefit the Avatar movies moving forward. A break would also give audiences a chance to miss the world of Pandora, making Avatar 4 feel like a bigger event. Fire and Ash arguably didn’t seem as special because it arrived so soon after The Way of Water. If Cameron takes some time off, maybe he’ll have another $2 billion Best Picture nominee on his hands.
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