Last we heard about James Cameron’s oft-delayed Avatar sequels, the plan was to bring four movies to theaters beginning in 2017. While the original plan was to release them sooner, Cameron has become more and more ambitious over the years, and has been forced to push them back multiple times over. He wants to develop technology (and a new submarine) that will allow him to film motion-capture performances underwater, and he’s hoping to film all three sequels back-to-back-to-back.
Despite the extensive pre-production phases, it appears that work is finally underway on the Avatar follow-ups, and Fox chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos seems confident that Avatar 2 will arrive as scheduled in late 2017. Speaking with Variety, he admitted that “Cameron has his own pace,” but seems happy with what he’s seen of the film so far.
Gianopulos visited Cameron in his New Zealand office just two months ago and spoke highly of the experience:
“It’s a room… which is covered floor to ceiling with images, characters, worlds, settings. It’s the most amazing, breathtaking thing you’ve ever seen. His challenge is to put all of that in a movie. In the first movie he created technology that was so far ahead of its time. Of course now he’s gone past all that… all the pieces are in place. The story is being finalized.”
Gianopulos “fully expects” that Avatar 2 will hit theaters in 2017, and that the sequels will arrive each year after that, confirming that they’ll be shot simultaneously. Now, we’ll just have to wait and see if that actually happens.