If there’s one lesson we’ve learned over the course of the last 40-odd years of cinema, it’s to never bet against James Cameron. There were bets against him when the maverick filmmaker took on the “Titanic,” and again when he insisted on building the imaginative and lush alien world of “Avatar” a decade later. In both instances, Cameron’s ventures not only succeeded, but made him a king of Hollywood cinema. 

“Avatar” is currently two movies deep into a planned five-movie saga, but now it looks like Cameron will be taking a detour after “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” As the filmmaker himself announced in a press release via his Facebook page today, Cameron’s company, Lightstorm Entertainment, has acquired the rights to author Joe Abercrombie’s latest novel, “The Devils.” That novel was literally just published on May 13, but it’s already built up quite a bit of buzz, even leaving Cameron’s interest aside. Abercrombie is one of the most popular fantasy novelists working today, with his “First Law” and “Age of Madness” novels becoming bestsellers. Cameron describes “The Devils” in his own words as a “sharply witty horror adventure” and an “epic battle between good and evil except most of the time you can’t tell which is which,” claiming that the novel is Abercrombie “in absolute peak form.”

It’s clear that both Abercrombie fans and Cameron are super excited about “The Devils,” which sounds like a horror-fantasy mashup story in the vein of “Constantine,” Clive Barker, or this year’s “In the Lost Lands.” For his part, Cameron states that he’ll be co-writing the script for a film version with Abercrombie, and of course this film will be produced by Lightstorm. The question on our minds now, of course, is the same one that the press release goes out of its way to not answer: will Cameron direct the movie adaptation of “The Devils,” and if so, what does that mean for “Avatar 4”?

Let’s be clear and say that we can only speculate about who might or might not be directing what future films to come from Lightstorm Entertainment. All we know for sure is that Cameron is going to be co-writing “The Devils” with Abercrombie. As he explains in the press release:

“I’m looking forward to the writing process with him, though I’m certain this adaptation will practically write itself because Joe writes very visually, almost in scenes, and with a very cinematic structure. I can’t wait to dig into this as I wind down on ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash.’ It will be a joyful new challenge for me to bring these indelible characters to life.”

Going by that statement alone, it’d be easy to infer that Cameron will be a co-screenwriter on “The Devils” only, operating in a similar fashion to 2019’s “Alita: Battle Angel,” a film which he co-wrote and was directed by Robert Rodriguez. This assumption becomes trickier, however, once you factor in a statement Cameron made during an interview with Empire in 2022, where he states that he may not feel compelled to helm the remaining “Avatar” adventures:

“The ‘Avatar’ films themselves are kind of all-consuming. I’ve got some other things I’m developing as well that are exciting. I think eventually over time — I don’t know if that’s after three or after four — I’ll want to pass the baton to a director that I trust to take over, so I can go do some other stuff that I’m also interested in. Or maybe not. I don’t know.”

At that time Cameron was still undecided about leaving Pandora behind and passing the torch to another filmmaker. Perhaps his obvious infatuation with “The Devils” has finally pushed him to decide to finish his time with “Avatar” after “Fire and Ash.” That said, the fourth “Avatar” is slated for release in 2029, a full four years in the future (the better to give the VFX teams time to develop the tech they need), which might give him time to squeeze in “The Devils.” (What about “Ghosts of Hiroshima?”) 

So, while the release of both “The Devils” and the final two “Avatar” movies are pretty much a given, they’ve got a case of Schrödinger’s director’s chair right now. It would seem very unlikely that Cameron will direct them all, but then again…we need to remind ourselves not to bet against Big Jim.