LOS ANGELES  –  After almost three weeks of release, Avatar: Fire and Ash finally made it to the $1 billion club, adding another feather in James Cameron, the film’s director’s cap. It’s the filmmaker’s fourth film, which reached the billion-dollar mark at the global box office. The report comes after the director repeatedly stated that the latest film must do handsome business to justify the franchise’s upcoming installments, given the pricey tag on each. In a previous interview with Variety, he said in reference to the franchise, “We’re getting ahead of ourselves because, first of all, we’ve got to make some money with this one,” adding, “Every time we go out, we have to prove this crazy business case yet again. The new Avatar movie was released when cinemas as a whole were struggling. In light of this, James added, “The world has changed. We all know the stats, where theatrical is. It’s been a bad year. It’s starting to perk up a little bit with a couple of recent releases: ‘Wicked: For Good’ has done well, and ‘Zootopia 2’ is doing well. So, we’ll see.”  The question the director raised at the time was not about the money but about the profit margin Ash and Fire would make. “Do we make any money with ‘Avatar 3” I mean, we’ll make some money. But the question is, what kind of a profit margin, if any, is there, and how much of an inducement is that to continue on in this universe? Or maybe we wait a while until we figure out how to bring costs down,” he shared. Given that Avatar: Fire and Ash has soared past the $1 billion mark, the future of the franchise now seems to be not hazy in James’s view.