Avatar: James Cameron Rejected “Many” Sequel Ideas For a Specific Reason

James Cameron had to reject multiple Avatar sequel ideas because of one core reason. The director sat down with Marianne Williamson to talk about the next few films. It turns out that the filmmaker wants to make sure that viewers get the same feeling of wonder from any of these sequels that they experienced seeing Avatar in theaters the first time. Now, that’s a lofty goal because the movie was such a phenomenon during its initial theatrical run. There was nothing else quite like it on screen at the time. From effects to the staggering scope of some of those shots, theater-goers had plenty to gawk at in their seats. Cameron believes that the sort of visceral reaction to the second film is going to be crucial, and it’s hard to argue with that viewpoint. The kinds of films that are really going to move the needle over the next two years are things that you have to be in a theater for. Check out what he had to say down below:

“It didn’t have any ‘-isms’ to it, it was a dreamlike sense of a yearning to be there, to be in that space, to be in a place that is safe and where you wanted to be,” Cameron explained. As a result, there were many stories that were rejected. He shared, “We created and rejected many storylines for the second and third film because they didn’t take us to that transportive, dreaming-with-your-eyes-wide-open feeling.”

In the same interview, Cameron talked about threatening to fire some of the sequel writers. He had to stress that capturing the magic from the first film was paramount. So, the task at hand became closely analyzing the first film to figure out what worked and what didn’t work.

“When I sat down to write the sequels, I knew there were going to be three at the time and eventually it turned into four, I put together a group of writers and said, ‘I don’t want to hear anybody’s new ideas or anyone’s pitches until we have spent some time figuring out what worked on the first film, what connected, and why it worked,” he explained. “They kept wanting to talk about the new stories. I said, ‘We aren’t doing that yet.’ Eventually, I had to threaten to fire them all because they were doing what writers do, which is to try and create new stories. I said, ‘We need to understand what the connection was and protect it, protect that ember and that flame.’”

What do you want to see in an Avatar sequel? Let us know down in the comments!