In 2009, James Cameron’s Avatar broke box office records upon its release. Ten years later and fans are eagerly awaiting the next installment with Avatar 2. It looks like filming has recently resumed, despite a wide array of setbacks, including the global pandemic known as Coronavirus.
Avatar’s Challenging Production History
The Avatar series has had a checkered past with release dates. Avatar 2 was originally due for release in December 2014, then filming was due to happen in April 2016. By August 2017, it was announced that the motion capture elements of the film had started.
The further announcement of a fourth Avatar movie pushed the release date back once again to December 2016, 2017, and even 2018. James Cameron credited the delays to the writing process, which he’s very involved in. With a new release date of December 2020 being delayed once again, many were concerned that things had once again halted, especially with the spectre of the coronavirus hanging over many productions. Indeed, it was March this year that it was announced that the production on the sequel had halted due to Covid-19.
Jon Landau Confirms Avatar 2 Filming Via Instagram
However fans of original Avatar film need not worry too much. Producer Jon Landau recently posted to Instagram a series of on set photos complete with the exciting news that Avatar 2 filming will resume this coming week!
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This not only comes as a relief to fans, but to everybody working towards next years release date. Despite the break in filming, James Cameron and his crew have been beavering away behind the scenes and working on visual effects (these are apparently budgeted at $1 billion!!) Let’s hope they are as breathtaking as when we first caught a glimpse of Pandora and its inhabitants, the Na’Vi.
Our Avatar sets are ready — and we couldn’t be more excited to be headed back to New Zealand next week. Check out the Matador, a high speed forward command vessel (bottom) and the Picador jetboat (top) — can’t wait to share more.
How amazing do those vessels look? We know that Avatar 2 will mostly be focusing on the underwater elements of the planet, so the ships come as no big surprise. Indeed a further look at Jon Landau’s Instagram appear to confirm this with posts featuring the movie’s actors submerged in large scale production tanks (reportedly about 900,000 gallons!) The ships look pretty impressive and look like they could possibly belong to the military, rather then the Na’Vi. We can’t wait to see what they look like in action.
Which Avatar Cast Members Will Be Returning?
Slash Film report that the Avatar sequels are set to bring back the original cast members, as well as new additions such as Kate Winslet, Edie Falco, Michelle Yeoh, Vin Diesel, Jemaine Clement, and Oona Chaplin. They have also reported that the children of Jake and Neytiri have been cast.
Filming for the sequels is taking place back to back in New Zealand, with the prospective release dates being every other December, starting next year. James Cameron seems fairly confident that the film will make the new release date as well, despite these minor setbacks.
If these behind the scenes images are anything to go by, we can be fairly confident that the forthcoming sequels for Avatar 2 and beyond will be as visually stunning as the original film. The long wait between sequels is hardly surprising as well, we did after all wait a fair few years before Terminator: Judgement Day.
What do you think of Avatar 2? Do you think there has been too long a wait between sequels? Or are you super hyped for the next installment?
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Source: SlashFilm.
