After close to a decade in development, production is now finally underway on James Cameron’s Avatar sequels, with the filmmaker embarking on his hugely ambitious plan to shoot four films consecutively. The production will however be taking a break between the first two sequels and the latter two, and it seems that Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 may not yet be set in stone.
“Let’s face it, if Avatar 2 and 3 don’t make enough money, there’s not going to be a 4 and 5,” Cameron tells Vanity Fair. “They’re fully encapsulated stories in and of themselves. It builds across the five films to a greater kind of meta narrative, but they’re fully formed films in their own right, unlike, say, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where you really just had to sort of go, ‘Oh, shit, all right, well I guess I better come back next year.’ Even though that all worked and everybody did.”
SEE ALSO: James Cameron isn’t concerned about the long gap between Avatar movies
Cameron also spoke about reuniting with his Titanic star Kate Winslet on the sequels, stating that: “She’s very excited about it. She blazed through for a couple of days of rehearsals and saw the world that we had created, and how we do the work, and she’s very excited. She plays a character who’s part of the Sea People, the reef people. The one thing she did do is demand that she do all her own water work. I said, ‘All right, that’s fine, we’ll have to teach you how to free dive.’”
SEE ALSO: James Cameron on the technical challenges of shooting underwater on the Avatar sequels
Avatar 2 will open on December 18th 2020, followed by Avatar 3 on December 17th 2021, Avatar 4 on December 20th 2024 and Avatar 5 on December 19th 2025. Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Matt Gerald, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi and Sigourney Weaver, while new additions to the cast include Kate Winslet, Oona Chaplin, Cliff Curtis, Britain Dalton, Filip Geljo, Jamie Flatters, Bailey Bass, Trinity Bliss, Jack Champion, and Duane Evans Jr.
Originally published December 2, 2017. Updated April 18, 2018.
