James Cameron Has Already Shot Footage for Avatar 4

The franchise’s future hinges on the success of Avatar 2 , James Cameron says he’s already shot footage that will appear in the proposed fourth film. Cameron’s been filming the upcoming Avatar sequels and has been approaching their production as a single massive undertaking. In an interview with Dune director Denis Villeneuve. who has to turn his attention towards his own sci-fi film’s sequel pretty soon, for Variety, Cameron explained his method for directing the Avatar sequels, saying he worried that the franchise’s younger actors in the movies might age out of their roles before a planned six-year age-up in the fourth film. 

“2 is fully in the can,” Cameron confirmed. “We have a working cut that we’re filling in the visual effects within. I feel pretty confident with that film. 3 is still a bit shadowy. It’s way too long. I haven’t really turned my energy into a disciplined cutting process on that yet. But I know I’ve got the performances. That’s the important thing. I’ve done all the capture. I’ve done most of the live-action shooting. I still owe a little bit on some of the adult characters. We were more concerned with the kids aging out.”

He continued, “We mixed the schedules for 2 and 3 together, based on the types of scenes and the environments. 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.’

Again, all of this depends on whether these massive films make a decent amount of money for 20th Century Studios, now owned by Disney. “The big issue is: Are we going to make any damn money?” Cameron told EW recently. “Big, expensive films have got to make a lot of money. We’re in a new world post-COVID, post-streaming. Maybe those [box office] numbers will never be seen again. Who knows? It’s all a big roll of the dice.”

What do you think? Let us know in the comments. Avatar 2 opens in theaters on December 16th, 2022.