Stranger Things Influence on Avatar: The Way of Water Revealed
20th Century Studios released the highly anticipated sequel to 2009's Avatar and fans have been loving what they've seen from the next chapter of Pandora. Avatar: The Way of Water introduces us to new characters like Jake Sully and Neytiri's children. The kids are all CGI, so dealing with them growing up on camera won't be an issue, but there is a character in the film that this might be an issue for– Spider. Jack Champion plays Spider in the sequel, and director James Cameron learned a valuable lesson from Stranger Things while shooting with the actor. Avatar 2, 3 and the first act of 4 all shot back to back so that the director could film before Champion got too old, ala the Stranger Things kids. During a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cameron revealed that the actor was 12 years old and "growing like a weed".
"Otherwise, you get — and I love Stranger Things— but you get the Stranger Things effect where they're supposed to still be in high school [but] they look like they're 27," Cameron told EW. "You know, I love the show. It's okay, we'll suspend disbelief. We like the characters, but, you know."
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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