During 20th Century Fox’s CinemaCon presentation, James Cameron offered an update on his Avatar franchise, and announced that he is now going to make four Avatar sequels. Now we have an idea why James Cameron has continued to delay his Avatar sequels.The last we heard there was only three, I imagine next year he’ll announce four more – just to tie Star Wars. I’m convinced that Cameron will be making these Avatar films throughout the rest of his career. So much for a live-action Battle Angel anytime soon.
Cameron revealed that the sequels are being created as films that will stand on their own so they will tell individual stories that, together, will “form a complete saga”.
For the past several years, Cameron and a team of writers and designers have been working on the scripts and designs for several new Avatar movies. First he was planning it as a trilogy, then as a series of four, and now it’s five. Cameron said that the stories he and his writers were developing kept growing bigger and bigger. And when you’re following up the highest grossing film of all time, the company is fine with that.
Avatar 5 will be released Christmas 2023, following Avatar 2 at Christmas 2018, Avatar 3 at Christmas 2020, and Avatar 4 at Christmas 2022. The first of the Avatar sequels is set to start shooting in New Zealand this month.
I have a friend who works on the Avatar films and he hasn’t been called for any work yet!
Cameron said that the few people who have seen the designs he and his team are working on have been left speechless. “The pure imagination is far beyond the first film,” he said. There will be new characters, new creatures, new environments, new cultures, and more. A quick flurry of concept art flickered on the screen, and there were Na’vi jumping off cliffs, flying over oceans, burning ships. All of it familiar, but exciting, Avatar imagery.
Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, and Sigourney Weaver are confirmed to reprise their roles. The films are being written by Cameron along with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno.
Now we’ll see if the filmmaker, whose been working on these movies for several years already, can just stop and make them.