While producer, director and writer James Cameron is not saying it, pressure is actually on him and “Avatar 2” to match or surpass the record of “Avatar” as the world’s biggest grossing film of all time.
When it was released in 2009, “Avatar” made a worldwide box office haul of $2.7 billion and went on to become the highest grossing film.
Cameron has been taking his time in developing the sequel to “Avatar” because he really wants the movie to meet fan expectations and his high standard in film-making.
So while the first movie has been shown six years ago, he is still not in a hurry to finish the sequel. And apparently, instead of merely one sequel, there will be three sequels, notes the Gospel Herald.
The award-winning producer, director and writer said that it’s not easy working on the script for “Avatar 2” and the next two sequels of “Avatar,” citing that there’s a layer of complexity in getting the story to work as a saga across three films that simply cannot be derived in making a stand-alone film.
He confirmed that his screenwriting team has been writing “Avatar 2” simultaneously with “Avatar 3” and “Avatar 4” because he wants everything to be seamless.
Camerson said that it would be difficult to make one and then make up and do another one and another one after that than putting them together in one sitting.
It is also easier for the designers of the characters and environments that they will be using for the next three “Avatar” sequels.
After “Avatar 2” is released in December 2017, “Avatar 3” will follow suit in December 2018, and finally by “Avatar 4” in December 2019.
Pushed back
“Avatar 2” was originally scheduled for release in December 2016 but Cameron decided to push it back one year later.
His decision has something to do with the too many materials of his scriptwriting team to work on not just the planned three sequels but actually four.
As a result, Cameron had to go back to the drawing board to ensure that the materials he has would just be sufficient enough to make three sequels and not four. That necessitated a lot of time for him to figure out which materials should make the cut and which should be discarded.
In a recent interview, James Cameron said that he is not in a hurry to capitalize on the success of the first film, believing more on the quality of stories that he’s telling. He added that they’ve had a couple of years to think through the storylines of the next three sequels of “Avatar” so he is confident that they will come out to meet fan expectations.