Avatar 4 Has Already Completed A Lot of Filming
Disney is getting ready to release Avatar: The Way of the Water in theaters this Christmas, with 13 years passing since the original hit theaters. The Way of Water will bring back the original cast that included Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver, with a bunch of newcomers joining the team. Director James Cameron still has two more Avatar sequels to finish up, but it seems that he's already started on the fourth film. During a new interview with Variety, Executive Producer Jon Landau revealed that they've actually already completed a lot of filming on Avatar 4.
"We've completed most of the first act of 'Avatar 4' and there were logistical reasons why we needed to do that," Landau revealed to the trade. "We've designed most of the whole movie for 'Avatar 4' but we haven't actually filmed all of it – just the first act."
Cameron has been developing sequels to his record-breaking film for over a decade. The studio has announced four sequels to Avatar, with two already filmed, and the other two are waiting to see how the first does at the box office. The director shot both sequels back to back due to how the scenes they needed to film for both. About a year ago, Cameron confirmed to Variety why he shot the films this way.
"We mixed the schedules for 2 and 3 together, based on the types of scenes and the environments," Cameron revealed to the trade. "I said, let's just treat it like it's a six-hour miniseries and we're only going to go to Frankfurt once. We're going to shoot all the scenes from 2 and 3 at the same time. That was more or less the motif. Actor availability was an issue as well. Anything that had to be done with a specific actor, we did all the scenes for 2 and 3 together — and a little bit of 4. Because once again, I had to shoot the kids out. They're allowed to age six years in the middle of the story on page 25 of movie 4. So I needed everything before then, and then everything after, we'll do later."
The sequel is confirmed to feature several returning stars that include Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stepehn Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, CCH Pounder, Matt Gerald, and Sigourney Weaver. The cast for the sequels will include several more newcomers than returning members, though, with the likes of Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Michelle Yeoh, Jemaine Clement, Oona Chaplin, David Thewlis, Vin Diesel, and CJ Jones all set to appear as well. Plot details for the sequels are currently unknown.
Avatar: The Way of Water is set to arrive on December 16, 2022, with Avatar 3 set to debut two years later on December 20, 2024.
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