We’re getting some unique insights about some of the new characters we can expect to see in director James Cameron’s forthcoming blockbuster sequel, Avatar 2.
A follow-up to the 2009 global smash hit, Avatar, which was only recently dethroned as the top-grossing worldwide film of all time by 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, this sequel coming out next year will in part explore the growing family that Sam Worthington’s Jake and Zoe Saldaña’s Neytiri now share on the bioluminescent alien jungle planet of Pandora.
The pair have a number of alien children, part of the Na’vi tribe, unsurprisingly — including Jamie Flatters’ Neteyam, Britain Dalton’s Lo’ak, and Trinity Bliss’ Tuktirey — but the duo will also be parents to an adopted human child as well. We’re getting a first look at that character, via Empire, whose name is Javier Socorro, AKA Spider, played by Jack Champion. Take a look at the image for yourself right here.
In the 13 intervening years from the initial film to now, the character was born at the military base on Pandora, but was too tiny to safely get transported back to Earth, so he was raised by our heroes on the alien world known by corporate interests for its enormous deposits of the precious resource known as Unobtainium.
Producer Jon Landau explained in the Empire issue that Spider is viewed by Neytiri as one of the people who destroyed her home and killed her father, but Jake took the child in, at any rate, resulting in some conflicting “dynamics” to be played out in the film.
Landau explained that the story, co-penned by Cameron, will once again touch on universal themes, this time being that of family.
“Jake comes from the human world, Neytiri from the Na’vi world. So, they’re like a modern mixed-race couple, raising kids who perhaps feel they don’t belong to one world or another,” he said.
Avatar 2, part of a planned string of Avatar sequels coming down the pipeline, is currently slated for release on Dec. 16, 2022.