Fans waited 13 years for the Avatar sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water. Luckily, they won’t have to wait quite as long for the next chapters.
According to one of the epic sci-fi movie‘s producers, Avatar 3 is almost complete, and Avatar 4 is already filming. Here’s a breakdown of what to expect from the upcoming installments and tentative release dates.
Why it took so long for James Cameron to make the ‘Avatar’ sequel, ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’
James Cameron’s Avatar premiered in 2009. The film, which stars Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, and Sigourney Weaver, became the highest-grossing film of all time. Its breakthrough filming techniques earned it dozens of accolades, including Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction.
Cameron wrote and directed Avatar and began writing the sequels in 2012. He knew he wanted to take the story of Pandora and Na’vi to the water. So being the passionate seafarer he is, the filmmaker spent years exploring the oceans in his own special submarines.
Knowing much of the sequels’ stories would take place in Pandora’s waters, Cameron decided to create a new underwater performance capture technology. With his new cameras and techniques, he could layer digital post-production designs over the actors’ performances.
Putting everything in place, including the script, technology, and sets, took several years. Cameron was finally ready to start filming the sequel in 2017.
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‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ producer Jon Landau confirms ‘Avatar 4’ is filming
When he started making Avatar: The Way of Water in 2017, Cameron began filming the sequels simultaneously. As producer Jon Landau confirmed to Collider, Avatar 3 is already near completion, and scenes for Avatar 4 have also been filmed.
“What we’ve done is, first of all, we’ve completed all four scripts for 2, 3, 4, and 5,” Landau said. “[The cast] read them. They know where their characters go. They know. It informs how they play these scenes.”
“We went out and we shot all of movie 2,” he continued. “We shot 95% of movie 3. We have a little bit that we have to still pick up. And we shot the first act of movie 4.”
What will ‘Avatar 3’ and ‘Avatar 4’ be about, and when will they premiere?
Avatar: The Way of Water takes place a few years after the events of Avatar and follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) as they explore Pandora with their kids and resume their fight against human colonization. Landau told Collider that Avatar 3 and Avatar 4 will introduce new clans and regions.
“I think one of the great things that we’ve done, and Jim has done in these scripts, is each movie is going to take you to new biomes and new cultures,” he teased. “And I think one of the things that Avatar has is this idea of ‘Oel ngati kameie.’ I see you.”
“And it’s not about seeing you for who you physically are or what you look like,” Landau added. “It’s about seeing you from the inside, and the idea that we get to introduce new diverse clans that look different than the Omaticaya, and send a metaphor for our world, and accepting people for who they are on the inside and not judging them by who they are on the outside.”
Landau also suggested that while “each movie comes to its own emotional resolution,” Avatar 5 will be the one that “really drives it home.”
As of now, the sequels are scheduled to release every two years. The tentative Avatar 3 release date is Dec. 20, 2024, and Avatar 4 comes out Dec. 18, 2026. The final installment, Avatar 5, is slated for a 2028 release.
