The time when James Cameron’s Avatar was breaking all sorts of box office records and forcing critics to concede that 3D was the future of cinema seems very much like a distant memory now – and indeed more than a decade has passed since the sci-fi hit attracted huge crowds upon its release.
But the legendary director is by no means finished with the saga – and there are as many as four sequels currently in the works, continuing the story of the blue Na’Vi and unobtainium.
Given it’s incredible box office success, sequels in and of themselves aren’t exactly a shock, but the surprising aspect is just how long they have taken to come about – with the first sequel having originally been earmarked for a 2014 release.
But now the wait should soon be over: after a delay to filming caused by the coronavirus pandemic, shooting on the first sequel, rumoured to be subtitled The Way of Water, has resumed – with the film now slated for a late 2021 release.
Find out everything you need to know about Avatar 2, and the other three sequels, below…
What is Avatar 2’s release date?
The first sequel was slated for release on 18th December 2020, but has since been moved back to 17th December 2021 thanks to covid-19.
Filming has now resumed on Avatar 2, with production restarting in New Zealand after the country announced they were coronavirus-free.
Today (16th June), New Zealand reported two new cases, both of which arrived from the UK.
This will be followed by Avatar 3 on 22th December 2023. Then there will be a three-year break, with Avatar 4 arriving on 19th December 2025, and 5 coming on 17th December 2027.
That is if everything goes to plan, which it hasn’t so far. The first sequel was originally aiming for release in 2014.
What was the impact of Covid-19?
Like most films around the world, shooting on Avatar 2 was halted as the world locked down – but thanks to New Zealand’s powerful response to the coronavirus, production has now restarted.
“We feel very comfortable because of the actions of [the NZ] government and also the responsibility the people took to really curb the virus there,” producer Jon Landau told Radio New Zealand.
“So we feel we’re coming back to the safest place in the world possible thanks to a team of people that we’ve worked with. We believe we have a very thoughtful, detailed and diligent safety plan that will keep everybody as safe as possible in these unprecedented times.”
The film resumed shooting on Monday 15th June, with Landau claiming that they were going to hire 400 New Zealanders to work on the film.
What is going to happen in the Avatar sequels?
James Cameron has revealed only a few details about the sequels. The first, and most important, is that much of it will take place underwater.
“There’s a tremendous amount of water work across Avatar 2 and 3,” Cameron told Collider. “It’s ongoing into 4 and 5, but the emphasis is on 2 and 3.”
Recently, 20th Century Studios released a teaser picture of the cast doing some motion-capture work in a water tank, showing that Cameron wasn’t kidding about the importance…
From the set of the sequels: @ZoeSaldana, Sam Worthington, Kate Winslet, and Cliff Curtis taking a break from underwater performance capture for a quick photo!
Fun fact: Much of the performance capture took place in this 900,000 gallon tank, built specifically for the sequels. pic.twitter.com/NSfqoZ6jXJ
— Avatar (@officialavatar) May 13, 2020
We also know that each sequel will be a standalone story, rather than another instalment in a serialised story.
“Each movie is a standalone movie that we would want to go see,” producer Jon Landau said. “You don’t need to have seen the first Avatar to see Avatar 2. It sits there and we’re gonna take people on a visual and an emotional journey that comes to its own conclusion.”
Later, Landau also revealed that Avatar 2 is something of a family story.
“This is the story of the Sully family and what one does to keep their family together,” he said.
“Jake and Neytiri have a family in this movie, they are forced to leave their home, they go out and explore the different regions of Pandora, including spending quite a bit of time on the water, around the water, in the water.”
Cameron has said that Kate Winslet’s character Ronal is a character who’s “part of the Sea People, the reef people”, which makes us think she might play a significant part in Avatar 2, which is allegedly called The Way of the Water.
Everything else is up in the air, but we expect more details to come out as we get closer to that December 2020 release date – check back here for more info as we have it.
What are the Avatar sequels called?
BBC News reported that it had “seen documentation” which revealed the titles for the four sequels as the following:
- Avatar: The Way of Water
- Avatar: The Seed Bearer
- Avatar: The Tulkun Rider
- Avatar: The Quest for Eywa
Nothing has been officially confirmed yet, however, and it could be that even if the documentation is true the titles could change before release.
Avatar sequels cast
The core cast from the original film, including Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Sam Worthington, are all on long-running contracts, so they will be returning.
Some big names have been added to the cast, too, including Kate Winslet, Edie Falco, Oona Chaplin, Vin Diesel, Star Trek: Discovery’s Michelle Yeoh and The Walking Dead’s Cliff Curtis.
Winslet will play a character called Ronal in her first collaboration with Cameron since 1997’s Titanic (the third highest-grossing film of all time).
Why has Avatar 2 taken so long?
Initially, the films were reportedly delayed because Cameron was intent on making them a technological marvel on the same scale as the original. To do, he turned to underwater CGI, which has never been done in any great measure beforehand, and meant a long spell of pre-production.
Cameron explained the main issues of this filming technique in an interview with Collider:
“The problem with water is not the underwater part, but the interface between the air and the water, which forms a moving mirror,” he said. “That moving mirror reflects all the dots and markers, and it creates a bunch of false markers. It’s a little bit like a fighter plane dumping a bunch of chaff to confuse the radar system of a missile. It creates thousands of false targets, so we’ve had to figure out how to get around that problem, which we did.
“Basically, whenever you add water to any problem, it just gets ten times harder. So, we’ve thrown a lot of horsepower, innovation, imagination and new technology at the problem, and it’s taken us about a year and a half now to work out how we’re going to do it.”
On top of this, Cameron’s desire to have all four sequels written and ready to go before shooting began on Avatar 2 slowed things down quite a bit.
“The scripts took four years,” he told Vanity Fair. “You can call that a delay, but it’s not really a delay because from the time we pushed the button to really go make the movies [until now,] we’re clicking along perfectly. We’re doing very well because of all the time that we had to develop the system and the pipeline and all that. We weren’t wasting time, we were putting it into tech development and design. So when all the scripts were approved, everything was designed. Every character, every creature, every setting.”
Then, when the film was finally underway, the coronavirus pandemic hit and production was shut down worldwide – but New Zealand’s near-unique recovery has meant that filming can begin again sooner than on other productions around the world. Finally, Avatar can do things a little more quickly…
How do the Avatar movies relate to The Last Airbender?
Well, they don’t relate at all – Avatar: The Last Airbender is an animated series from Nickelodeon that recently reemerged in the popular consciousness due to new streaming deals on Netflix, and bears no relationship to James Cameron’s film series.
There is one connection between the two Avatars, however – when M. Night Shyamalan turned the cartoon series into a critically-derided live-action movie (pictured), he was unable to use the “Avatar” title from the comic thanks to Cameron buying up the copyright, meaning he had to use the suffix “The Last Airbender” instead.
It’s unclear whether Netflix’s upcoming live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series will have similar issues, though with more of Cameron’s Avatar movies coming there could be more confusion to come.
from Radio Times https://ift.tt/37zFlex
