The sprawling nature of the Avatar franchise and the inventive storytelling demonstrated by filmmaker James Cameron time and time again means that even the most devout fan is largely in the dark about what the future could hold for the franchise. With Avatar 3 currently expected to land in theaters in December of 2025, Cameron recently confirmed that the follow-up to that film, Avatar 4, will feature a more substantial jump forward in time than seen in other films. The initial plan for Avatar films was to release them every two years, and while it will have been three years between Avatar: The Way of Water and Avatar 3, there will reportedly be a four-year wait until Avatar 4 in 2029.
“We did the capture on [Avatar 3] and the live-action photography on 3 as an intermingled production with [Avatar: The Way of Water], and we even did part of [Avatar 4] because our young characters are all going to have a big time jump in movie 4,” Cameron confirmed to People. “We see them and then we go away for six years and we come back. And so the part where we come back is the part we haven’t shot yet. So we’ll start on that after 3 is released.”
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The wait between the debut Avatar and The Way of Water was 13 years, so a three-year wait for the third installment will come as a relief to audiences. The filmmaker also confirmed that the nature of the franchise means that he was able to obtain a significant chunk of footage for the upcoming sequel, which he also described as being a more straightforward process than The Way of Water.
“3 is actually much more straightforward than [The Way of Water],” Cameron confirmed of shooting. “2, we got hit with the pandemic in the middle of it and we were interrupted, and then we had to reboot and reboot the production and all that sort of thing. And it was a scramble to get it done.”
As cemented with The Way of Water, future sequels are set to explore Na’vi tribes that are connected to other elements, with the nature of filming complex water-based scenes making for more complications than other elements. Much is unknown about both Avatar 3 and Avatar 4, but these comments from Cameron are sure to excite fans.
Stay tuned for updates on the Avatar sequels.
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