Between Titanic, Terminator and Avatar, you can’t accuse James Cameron of thinking small, but even for Cameron, his plan for four sequels to 2009’s Avatar sounds ambitious. There was actually a time when Avatar 2 was supposed to come out in 2014, but that eventually got pushed to December 2020 and finally to December 2021. With that sort of history, you could understand why fans might be nervous, but Cameron not only assured Variety that the sequels will suffer no more setbacks, but that they’re further along that we thought.
"From 2013 until now we’ve mostly designed the whole world across four new movies. We’ve written, finished scripts for all four of those films. We’ve cast them, and we’ve [performance] captured movie 2, movie 3, and the first part of movie 4. We’re mostly done with the live action. I’ve got a couple months in New Zealand in the spring, so we’re kind of on track with what we set out to do."
Already performance captured parts of movie 4? That is ahead of the curve.
Of course, performance capture is not the same as live-action shooting, which Cameron notes will continue in New Zealand in the spring, but it still counts as progress, especially considering the extent of performance capture work needed for the continued adventures of Jake Sully, the Navi, and their human adversaries.
As for the delays, Cameron explained that like the original, the sequels are breaking new ground in terms of technology and filming techniques. “People don’t really understand the scope and complexity of the process,” he said. “It’s like making two and a half big animated films. A typical big animated film takes about four years, so, if you do the math on that, we’re kind of right on schedule for December 2021.” Given Cameron’s track record, we’re gonna say he’s earned the benefit of doubt.
As it stands, the four Avatar sequels are set to release every other December, starting with Avatar 2 on December 17, 2021; Avatar 3 on December 22, 2023; Avatar 4 on December 19, 2025; and Avatar 5 on December 17, 2027. Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, Stephen Lang, Matt Gerald and Sigourney Weaver are all set to return, as well as new additions of Kate Winslet, Edie Falco, Michelle Yeoh, Vin Diesel, Jemaine Clement and Game of Thrones veteran Oona Chaplin.
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h/t IndieWire