James Cameron has offered an update on the status of his developing Avatar movie sequels, promising that future installments in the franchise will be grounded in "heart and truth."
The original Avatar is an ecologically friendly sci-fi tentpole and remains the highest grossing film of all, nearly ten years later. With Avatar 2-5 now in production, fans have since been mostly left in the dark about what to expect, when they finally return to Pandora. With a December 2020 release on the distant horizon for Avatar 2, Cameron had decided to shed a bit more light on the situation.
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Speaking at the Television Critics Association press tour to promote his new AMC show Visionaries, Cameron revealed why he is taking his time with the Avatar sequels:
"I think that the lesson for me from the first film that I've applied to the new films is that the more fantastic the imagery, the more otherworldly and the more you are pushing out to the edge of what's possible in terms of bringing imaginative imagery to the screen, the more it has to be grounded in relationship and in truth and in heart. And so I'm hopefully doing that in spades with the new films."
While the first movie was ambitious in its storytelling, it sounds like the franchise is set to get even bigger as it heads into the future. With a reported budget of $1 billion for the sequels, there is some serious money being plowed into the world of Avatar. It was never going to be easy to follow in the footsteps of the first Avatar, and Cameron went on to say that he is feeling the pressure of crafting the sequel:
"It doesn't matter how much you dress it up with great production design and great visual effects. If the story is not working, if you don't connect to the characters, it's just simply not going to work."
News has been slow on Avatar 2, but with Cameron reuniting with Kate Winslet and bringing back cast members like Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver, the next movie promises to be a much larger affair. There will be a whole new storyline, featuring an underwater species from the planet, but there is also expected to be an equally green morality at the center of Avatar 2. Elsewhere, the recent acquisition of Fox by Disney included Avatar in the deal, but unlike the up-in-the-air X-Men movies, Avatar looks to carry on as normal under the House of Mouse umbrella.
Cameron clearly has a vision for Avatar, and with the director seemingly so set on getting everything perfect, you might be able to forgive the 11-year wait between movies. The question is though, will Avatar stick to its tight schedule of releasing the next four movies before the end of 2025? That being said, the whole idea of Avatar 4 and 5 depends on the success of the next two movies. Thankfully, with Cameron pushing for the ideals of heart and truth that made the first movie so memorable, there are high hopes that Avatar 2 will be another blockbuster bonanza.
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Source: James Cameron [via IGN]
