The pre-production work for the sequel to the world’s biggest grossing film of all time “Avatar” was shocked by the news that the film’s music composer James Horner died in a plane crash in California last week.
James Cameron shares his success with “Avatar” and “Titanic,” the second biggest grossing film of all time, with the Academy Award-winning James Horner, referring to the latter as a teammate and a friend, reports Christian Today.
“Avatar 2” co-producer Jon Landau also shared the sentiments of Cameron with the untimely demise of James Horner, in a joint statement with the movie director.
Cameron and Landau said that they have lost not only a great teammate and collaborator but a dear friend as well. They also referred to Horner’s passing away as sad, shocking, as well as a waste in a way.
The director said that Horner could have done so much more music and that the two of them were already looking forward to their next collaborative work. The death of the movie’s film music composer will not, in any way, affect the scheduled release date of “Avatar 2” in December 2017.
Christmas showing
While 20th Century Fox did not announce exactly that the much-awaited film will make it to the big screens on Christmas Day of 2017 itself, CEO Jim Gianopulos believes that the date is just the perfect window that they’re looking at for “Avatar 2.”
In the event that “Avatar 2” gets to be actually shown on December 25, 2017, it is likely that the next two sequels, “Avatar 3” and “Avatar 4” will also get the same exact playdate on 2018 and 2019.
“Avatar” was released in 2009 so when “Avatar 2” hits worldwide theaters in 2017, the gap would have been eight years which gives producer, director, and writer James Cameron just about the time he needs to put all the pieces together.
Gianopulos says that Cameron has all the pieces in place so all he has to do is keep within his tight schedule as they will not just be filming one sequel but all three. The CEO said that Cameron has been building out the world of Avatar immensely in a room which is covered from floor to ceiling with images, characters, worlds, settings, details the International Business Times.
He said that those are the most amazing and breathtaking things one would ever see in his lifetime. The challenge of Cameron, according to Gianopulos, is to put all of those wonderful things in a three-part movie.
In high gear
The good news is that the scripts for all the three sequels are complete and by this time, pre-production should be in high gear.
Cameron said that production people and specialists are now designing creatures, settings, and characters that are part of all three films. The critically-acclaimed writer and director says that he understands the pressure to deliver, but he is not bothered by it saying that he has faced such during his entire career.
He said that the biggest pressure for him now is to cut out things in the three sequels that he likes or loves in order to fit just three films and not exceed it. So there is certainly no problem in looking for new and wonderful things that can be included in the three movies to impress the audience.
And as expected, James Cameron will utilize new special effects with the three sequels of “Avatar.” Reports have it that one of the main reasons why the release date of “Avatar 2” was pushed back by a year is because the director wanted to develop a technology to film motion-capture scenes underwater which confirms speculations that the movie would see Sully and his tribe driving into the Pandoran ocean.