Performance Capture Is Done On ‘Avatar 2’ And ‘Avatar 3’, James Cameron Says
It’s been 84 years sinceAvatarfirst hit the big screen, or at least it feels that way. But believe it or not, the fourAvatarsequels are still on the way, and they’ve been making some decent progress over the years, even as as the finish line forAvatar 2has been pushed back pretty much every year since 2014. Today brings news straight fromJames Cameronabout the progress of theAvatarsequels production, and you might be surprised to learn that the performance capture is completely done forAvatar 2andAvatar 3, and live-action production is almost finished too. Find out more below.
Speaking withVarietyon the 10th anniversary of Avatar this week, director James Cameron provided an update on where they stand with completing the four sequels planned for release every other year starting in 2021 and ending in 2027. Cameron said:
“From 2013 until now we’ve mostly designed the whole world across four new movies. We’ve written, finished scripts for all four of those films. We’ve cast them, and we’ve [performance] captured movie 2, movie 3, and the first part of movie 4. We’re mostly done with the live action. I’ve got a couple months in New Zealand in spring, so we’re kind of on track with what we set out to do.”
The crew recently celebrated the last day of live-action production for 2019 by posting a new photo from behind the scenes of the sequel. But otherwise, we haven’t seen much that provides any insight into what these sequels will look like. Cameron hopes people can be patient and explained why it’s taking so long to get these movies done:
“People don’t really understand the scope and complexity of the process. It’s like making two and a half big animated films. A typical big animated film takes about four years, so, if you do the math on that, we’re kind of right on schedule for December 2021.”
The question is whether or the interest will still be there by the time the first sequel arrives. By the time that happens, 11 years will have passed. When the final sequel arrives, nearly 20 years will have gone by. That’s wild.
TheAvatarsequels are bringing back the original movie’s cast membersSam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, andMatt Gerald. But there are several new cast members in the mix as well, includingKate Winslet, Edie Falco, Michelle Yeoh, Vin Diesel, Jemaine Clement, andOona Chaplin. Plus, there’sa whole slate of young actorsplaying Na’vi children in the movie too.
Avatar 2is slated to arrive in theaters onDecember 17, 2021, andAvatar 3will follow onDecember 22, 2023. If those two movies are successful at the box office, then James Cameron will continue withAvatar 4onDecember 19, 2025, andAvatar 5will finish the franchise onDecember 17, 2027.
