Avatar 2 is the “most insanely complicated movie ever made”

The first Avatar movie made waves when it premiered 13 years ago, becoming the highest-grossing film ever made. Years passed with no follow up, but director James Cameron and company are making up for lost time.

Later this year, Avatar: The Way of Water will hit theaters. And according to acclaimed writer-director Liam O’Donnell, who was present during Cameron’s keynote speech at Digital Day, it’s the “most insanely complicated movie ever made”:

"Just the amount of data they captured… Underwater performance capture with 15 cameras. 2 cams on every actor’s face capture. Underwater reference capture for fully CG creatures. Oh yeah and infrared depth capture to place CG characters in the live action footage."

The end result looks pretty spectacular. You can always count on James Cameron to deliver breathtaking visuals:

“All of the actors including a 7 year old kid and Sigourney in her 60’s had to take deep breathing courses so they could hold their breath for 2-3 minute underwater takes for the performance capture,” O’Donnell added. “Same as the camera operators! No scuba! All free diving in a tank together!”

Everything about this movie seems grand and expensive. They better hope it makes money, since the plan is to go all of the way to Avatar 5!

Sigourney Weaver teases her “goofy” new Avatar character

Avatar: The Way of Water sees the return of stars Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Zoe Saldana (Neytiti) and Stephen Lang (Colonel Quaritch). Of course, Quaritch was killed off in the first movie, so it’ll be interesting to see how they return. Sigourney Weaver, who played Dr. Grace Augustine in the first movie, is also returning.

Grace — the founder of the Avatar program — didn’t survive the first movie. Weaver is playing an entirely new Na’vi character named Kiri, a teenager. She admits that the role isn’t the kind she usually goes for.

“So Avatar I can’t really talk about, but I would say that it’s the biggest stretch I get to play in every possible way,” Weaver told Interview Magazine. “I think if Jim Cameron didn’t know me really well, he wouldn’t have cast me as something as goofy as this. I had to work in a completely different way to play this character, a very physical way.”

That said, she was delighted to have the challenge of playing a youthful character. “I think we all pretty much remember what we were feeling as adolescents,” she told Empire magazine. “I certainly do. I was 5’10” or 5’11” when I was 11. I felt strongly that Kiri would feel awkward a lot of the time. She’s searching for who she is. I was thrilled to be given that challenge by Jim.”

Avatar: The Way of Water premieres on December 16. Will it break more box office records? We’ll have to wait and see. You can never write off a James Cameron movie.

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