It's been over three years since James Cameron's science fiction epic "Avatar" was released in theaters and went on to become the highest grossing film of all time (the film made over $2 billion overseas). While there have been plans ever since for a sequel not much progress has been made regarding actually going into production. All we have is Cameron's word to fall back on in the meantime.
- Cameron intends to make a total of four "Avatar" films. The plan was to shoot the next two sequels back-to-back, but Sigourney Weaver confirmed that he may do all three one after the other. Weaver also confirmed that the plan at that time was to release the sequels in December of 2014 and December of 2015. "The Hobbit" trilogy alone probably pushed that back.
- Cameron bought 2,500 acres of land in New Zealand for $16 million with the intention of moving there to work on the sequels. He then confirmed that the first sequel wouldn't be ready until 2015 with the next sequel to follow a year later. Cameron wouldn't confirm a potential fourth film, but wasn't opposed to it either.
- Cameron announced that he'd only be working on "Avatar" films for the rest of his film career. Producer Jon Landau confirmed that a fourth film wasn't currently on the cards.
- About a week later, Cameron said that "Avatar 2" and "Avatar 3" would be one big project while "Avatar 4" was actually a prequel.
- Even though Cameron is devoting the next four or five years to "Avatar," Landau is confident that Cameron will get to "Battle Angel" and we could see it in theaters as early as 2017.
- Pre-production was set to begin in January of 2013 as of six months ago. Cameron said that he doesn't want "Avatar 2" to end like "The Matrix Reloaded." He's writing the sequels as two separate stories with an overall arc. He intends for the first sequel to conclude somehow yet touch on the fact that the story can and will continue.
- The next two movies have already been funded, but China is offering tax incentives that the studio may not want to pass up. Cameron is contemplating adding Chinese Na'vi to the sequel.
Most of this news is six to eight months old and not much, if anything, has been announced since. Despite ranking the original film rather highly after its initial viewing, the mindset was to hopefully experience some groundbreaking special effects which the film delivered in full swing. However it's never been revisited because there isn't any interest. In fact, the best thing the film did was inspire Cartman's "Dances with Smurfs" routine on a "South Park" episode.
The studio is obviously going to be interested in greenlighting however many sequels to the highest grossing film of all time, but will audiences still be interested by the time it's released? Will it still be successful? Will their technology be outdated by the time it does see the light of day? Sequels have a tendency to make more money yet be worse films than their predecessors, but this is coming from the guy who made "Terminator 2" and "Aliens." It'll be interesting to witness how this all unfolds regardless.
Sources: worstpreviews.com, imdb.com, boxofficemojo.com, linguaggioceleste.wordpress.com, aceshowbiz.com, hqmovie.blogspot.com, forum.warez.ag, plasmapool.org, www.gempak.org, setcelebs.com, filmschoolrejects.com, southparkstudios.com
Comments