Director James Cameron was rumored to be gearing up for a possible Angelina Jolie “Cleopatra” biopic. That’s not the case anymore. Apparently, Cameron has decided to go straight into work for Avatar 2 & 3.
it has just broke that he has agreed to shoot Avatar 2 and 3 beginning in late 2011 for Twentieth Century Fox, immediately after he wraps up the screenplays, which he intends to write in early 2011 with an eye towards beginning production later that year.
The sequels, undoubtedly to be shot natively with the 3D tech developed by Cameron and WETA Digital, are targeted for December 2014 and December 2015 release dates, respectively. Whether the productions will be back-to-back is pending.
Producer Jon Landau reiterated this about the pool of ideas Cameron can pull from (via Deadline):
“It is very exciting to be teaming again with our partners at Fox to give audiences the opportunity to return to Pandora. With the first movie, Jim only scratched the surface of the stories he wants to tell and the creatures and world he wants to create. Now we will continue his vision.”
Here are Cameron’s thoughts on his two-film commitment:
“It is a rare and remarkable opportunity when a filmmaker gets to build a fantasy world, and watch it grow, with the resources and partnership of a global media company. AVATAR was conceived as an epic work of fantasy – a world that audiences could visit, across all media platforms, and this moment marks the launch of the next phase of that world. With two new films on the drawing boards, my company and I are embarking on an epic journey with our partners at Twentieth Century Fox. Our goal is to meet and exceed the global audience’s expectations for the richness of AVATAR’s visual world and the power of the storytelling. In the second and third films, which will be self contained stories that also fulfill a greater story arc, we will not back off the throttle of AVATAR’s visual and emotional horsepower, and will continue to explore its themes and characters, which touched the hearts of audiences in all cultures around the world. I’m looking forward to returning to Pandora, a world where our imaginations can run wild.”
Just last week, Cameron, always the politician, had this to say about an Avatar sequel:
“I wouldn’t say it’s inevitable because we still haven’t worked out our deal with 20th Century Fox. So we’re still in an ongoing negotiation on that. Because it’s a big piece of business, and I’m trying to map it out as a game plan that stretches forward 10 years. And they don’t like to think that long term. We’ll get it worked out, probably.”
What was Fox’s deal breaker? According to Deadline, it was a hefty, generous donation to Cameron’s environmental protection fund. That said, news of these prioritized sequels should hardly come as a bombshell, what with Avatar’s $2.9 billion worldwide box office–the highest gross of all-time–and its nine Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director.
I’m glad that it’s been decided that Cameron will got straight to Avatar 2 & 3. I’m really interested in watching what he comes up for the next sequels. I hope he comes up with some original storyline this time around. Last time I checked, Cameron said he would explore Pandora’s ocean world, so I’m excited about that. Great news. Here’s hoping Cameron surpasses the original film in action and original storyline.
You guys excited about this news? What do you want to see explored in the sequels? What possible storyline do you think could be covered?
Being a huge Avatar/James Cameron/3D movie fan, I am really anticipating the launch of Avatar 1 and 2. I have seen Avatar twice in theatres (3D), and three times on Blue-ray. Frankly, I could watch it 100 times more and not get tired of it; I enjoy each and every trip to Pandora. Also, I am confident that the Canadian director can feed from Avatar and develop an incredible, yet surprising sequel.
Personally, I’d like to see the return of Sam Worthington (Jake Sully) since his performance was incredible. As well as the return of Zoe saldana (Neytri), and Sigourney Weaver (Dr. Grace Augustine). I feel that the humans will not take what happened to the corporation nonchalantly and plan an attack on the inhabitants of Pandora. Since Jake has both human and avatar instincts he will be assigned to lead the inhabitants to safety and help restore what was lost in Pandora.
I loved avatar and can’t wait to see the sequels it just sucks that it’s so far off. I also don’t understand why people are always talking shit on avatar anymore when I bet more than half those people saw it and liked it I guess it’s just has become the go to movie to diss cuz it made over 2 billion. Also the one thing people always point to is the unorginal story and I’ll be the first to say that it wasn’t orginal, but movies in general anymore aren’t orginal. I mean you might get that special movie every now and than but most are just rehash of old ideas with slight tweaks and twist. I think as long as the storys entertaining and the film is fun to watch like avatar than it’s fine. I was interested by the world Cameron created and thoroughly enjoyed the movie so I saw bring on the sequels.
I was in love with the first Avatar film and would love to see what the director James Cameron comes up with for the second and third installment of this film. The only dilemma I can see in making this film a franchise is like in most franchise one of the movies in the series turns beloved character into shells of the depth they had in the precious movies. For example, in the third Spider-Man film (which in my option was horrible) the characters like Peter Parker, Mary-Jane Watson and Harry Osborn got casted into simple good and bad guy in the film. Were in the precious films showed that all of the characters struggled with the good and bad decision they made.
“itis too bad how poor the spelling is in blogs these days.”
Dude. Isn’t the third Spiderman the one where Peter turns evil and Harry Osbourne reverses his loyalty to his father and saves the day? Wasn’t Sandman just a guy trying to take care of his daughter? Wasn’t the Venom dude just a nice guy who was constantly being overshadowed by Peter Parker until he finally lost it?
I mean, Spidey 3 wasn’t great by any stretch, but by your suggestion that the characters were stripped down to 2-dimensional good and bad archtypes, I have to wonder whether we saw the same movie.
Cameron has a rich imagination, and he has shown in the past his ability to create action movies with surprising twists and thought-provoking storylines.
Avatar failed me. Sure it looked great, but I was never caught up in the story, and everything felt formulaic. For every awe-inspiring visual, there was something else that was painfully cliche that threw me right out of the experience.
My hypothesis is that Cameron was being conservative with his script. He knew that the movie was a massive financial risk and there was a lot of pressure for him to top Titanic, so he took the ‘tried and true’ fish out of water formula and rolled with it.
My hope is that he’ll feel more emboldened with these sequels to take more risks. Maybe his characters will be a little more multi-dimensional, and maybe his story won’t follow a predictable arch.
Also, I’m hoping his new films might get away from the Navi altogether. I just don’t think the Navi were a very interested concept.
Some movies shouldn’t get sequels, regardless of how awesome they were. Like The Hangover, for instance. I kind of think Avatar stands alone very well…
But I’ll still see it in IMAX 3D opening day :P
Battle angel?
This is awesome news. Wonder how much money will it rake in when it opens in theaters. A 3 billion grossing movie?
Truly enjoyed the first in theatres (3-D).It blew me away.
funny thing is I still haven’t caught on Blu-Ray, for some reason I’m not in any hurry to re-watch. weird cause I do re-watch say, a comedy more so than action movies.