Only a month remains until Avatar: The Way of Water will be released in theaters. But did you know that there was another Avatar sequel that was scrapped? James Cameron revealed details of his shelved Avatar idea that didn’t make it to the screen due to ‘missing critical elements.’
In an interview with Total Film Magazine, Cameron shared details of his other idea for an Avatar sequel titled Avatar: The High Ground. While that title sounded like it took inspiration from Star Wars Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, the filmmaker revealed that the film didn’t play by Avatar’s rules, hence why it was scrapped.
“But it was missing one of those critical elements about sequels, which is that it didn’t go enough into the unexpected. It also didn’t play enough by Avatar rules, which is to connect us to the dream world, that which has a spiritual component that we can’t even quite quantify in words. It ticked every other box, but it didn’t tick that one.”
The filmmaker also revealed that the script has a total of 130 pages before it was thrown away. He worked with a team of writers for this sequel, only to realize that things didn’t work together. He ended up working on it alone, believing it was a great story.
“I was working with a team of writers. We had a lot of ideas. We kept trying to corral it into a box, and it never quite fit. So at a certain point, I said, ‘I’ll just finish it, and see if it’s a movie.’ I did. It came out, I think, at 130 pages. It was like, ‘Man, this is a great story. This is a hell of a read.’”
Luckily for Cameron, Avatar: The High Ground will still see the light of day. Instead of a movie, the project would become a graphic novel instead. The story will still contain elements from the original script, such as the zero-gravity scenes he’s always wanted. At the same time, the story has been restructured so that it fits between Avatar one and two’s narratives.
“We figured out a way to restructure the elements that we needed to distribute across the first two of the sequels, and relaunched it in a completely different way.
“There’s some great stuff in it. I mean, you’ve got the Na’vi fighting with bows and arrows in zero-G. I mean, I’m there! I want to see that movie. But it just didn’t achieve enough of the overall story and thematic goals that I had in mind. So we’re turning it into a Dark Horse graphic novel. You’ll be able to see that interim battle that took place between movie one and movie two.”
Avatar: The High Ground is a story that takes place before the events of Avatar: The Way of Water, and will be released on Dec 6. 2022.