James Cameron finishes shooting Avatar 2, almost done with Avatar 3

It’s been over a decade since Avatar, but ready or not, we’re getting FIVE new movies, and the first two have just finished shooting.

It’s been 11 years since Avatar, one of the most financially successful movies of all time, was released into theaters. Avatar 2 has taken a long time to come to fruition, and the global pandemic didn’t speed things up. But now, while chatting with Arnold Schwarzenegger during the 2020 Austrian World Summit, director James Cameron confirmed that shooting is “100% complete,” providing fans with a production update from New Zealand.

Meanwhile, Cameron and his team are “95%” finished with Avatar 3, because remember: we’re getting five new movies set on the alien world of Pandora, although those later ones feel too far away to even think about now. Let’s just get to the second movie, and then we’ll talk.

Cameron and company were able to get through so much shooting even amidst the coronavirus pandemic in part thanks to New Zealand’s stellar response to COVID-19. The country was declared virus-free back in June, and while there was an outbreak alert in August, it has since been downgraded. “We’re very lucky in that we chose this as our production site years ago,” Cameron said. “We made the first film here in New Zealand and it turns out to be ranking first or second best country in the world for its COVID response. […] We’re able to operate. We’re able to shoot and have a more or less normal life here. We were very fortunate, so I don’t see any roadblocks to us getting the picture finished, getting both pictures finished.”

If you were hoping for Cameron to spill some secrets about the upcoming films, then you’re going to be disappointed. He wouldn’t even divulge anything to the Terminator, so the rest of us can forget about it.

However, we have been able to piece together bits and pieces based on production set pictures: at the least, it looks like this movie will spend a lot of time in the oceans of Pandora; think of it like Avatar meets Titanic.

Avatar 2 is scheduled to hit theaters on December 16, 2022 while Avatar 3 is coming on December 20, 2024. Stay tuned for more updates as they roll in over the next few months…and years.

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h/t Deadline