Director James Cameron Proves Why He Is "King Of The World" Of Filmmaking With His Upcoming Avatar Sequels
James "King of the World" Cameron has never been afraid to go big with his films and it looks like Avatar 2 is going to be his biggest undertaking yet. In an exclusive with Entertainment Weekly, the details behind this long awaited sequel and those to follow come to light. This time around Cameron is going back to the sea for his inspiration for the CGI-heavy follow-up.
No stranger to the briny deep, the Titanic director is pulling no punches in terms of the depths he is willing to go to make this a spectacle to behold.
It sounds kind of nuts, the process. I mean, if Avatar hadn't made so much damn money, we'd never do this - because it's kind of crazy.
The next couple of films will focus on the sea faring cousins of the forest dwelling Na'vi named the Metkayina, taking place 14 years after the events of the first film. But not to worry, Jake Scully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are back and the new story will revolve around their kids.
Producer Jon Landau had this to say about the plot,
Ultimately, the sequels are a story about family, and the lengths parents will go through to keep that family together and keep them safe. I always say that Jim's movies have universal themes - and really, there's no more universal theme than family.
Though the choice of choosing the ocean as the setting comes from Cameron's love of the sea, which he spends most of his down time studying. When he proposed the idea, some were skeptical of the innovative director's decision. He recalls some of the early hiccups that arose during early tests of how they would pull this off.
My colleagues within the production really lobbied heavily for us to do it 'dry for wet,' hanging people on wires. I said, 'It's not going to work. It's not going to look real.' I even let them run a test, where we captured dry for wet, and then we captured in water, a crude level of our in-water capture. And it wasn't even close.
This kind of endeavor required the cast to be certified in scuba as well as having the ability to hold their breath underwater for extended periods of time. Sigourney Weaver, ever the bad ass, held hers for six and a half minutes, until Kate Winslet beat that record by a full minute. Oh, we forget to mention that Winslet has signed on to work with the director that sent her career skyrocketing with Titanic in 1997, only adding to the excitement.
With principal photography completed on Parts 2 and 3, the next step is how to sell the film during a worldwide pandemic and many streaming companies taking over for theaters. Cameron seems to be taking it in stride.
The big issue is: Are we going to make any damn money? Big, expensive films have got to make a lot of money. We're in a new world post-COVID, post-streaming. Maybe those [box office] numbers will never be seen again. Who knows? It's all a big roll of the dice.
We're not worried. James Cameron and his visionary film making will more than likely win the day at the box office.
