Avatar 2 set photo reveals two of the movie's awesome looking ocean-going ships. Released in 2009, James Cameron’s sci-fi epic Avatar revolutionized movie making technology on its way to grossing a then-record $2.79 billion at the worldwide box office (the record was of course broken in 2019 by Avengers: Endgame).
Strangely enough though, despite its nine Oscar nominations and huge box office take, Avatar is mostly talked about today for not being talked about. But Cameron doesn’t seem to mind that Avatar is largely forgotten as a pop culture entity because the filmmaker is now going ahead with not one but four sequels, with the first set to be delivered in 2021. Not surprisingly from Cameron, Avatar 2 and its sequels are once again pushing movie tech forward, as the director tackles the huge challenge of taking his performance capture cameras underwater to create a new undersea kingdom on the moon Pandora.
As further demonstration of Avatar 2’s considerable underwater element, producer Jon Landau just shared a picture of two human ships from the film. See the image in the space below:
In keeping with the spirit of the first Avatar, which pitted corporate- and military-type humans against peaceful alien forest dwellers, the human ships have a very militaristic look to them. The forward command ship “Matador” indeed sports a huge and scary looking harpoon gun, which seems to tease that Avatar 2 will feature some large sea creatures that require spearing. Given the pro-ecology bent of Avatar, it would indeed not be a surprise to see the second film feature a storyline that parallels the still-controversial real life planet Earth issue of whaling (which would, if nothing else, give Cameron a chance to make his Moby Dick).
Indeed, a recent BTS photo from Avatar showed several of the movie’s actors, including Kate Winslet (who knows all about hitting the water with Cameron after Titanic) in a huge tank being used to shoot some of the movie’s underwater action. Cameron of course is renowned for his love of filming under the ocean after The Abyss and his documentary films on the Titanic.
It remains to be seen if audiences will flock back to theaters for Cameron’s return trip to Pandora in Avatar 2, but the glimpses fans have seen so far are definitely encouraging, and Cameron’s track record is largely spotless when it comes to delivering crowd-pleasing popcorn entertainment. But, there is still a legitimate question about the wisdom of committing so much time and energy to Avatar sequels when the first film has so thoroughly faded from the pop culture landscape. This time, Cameron may have truly bitten off more than he can chew (though truthfully it’s never a good idea to count the filmmaker out).
Source: Jon Landau/Instagram
