Writer/director James Cameron has helped change the landscape of the blockbuster going back to the 1980s with his landmark films Aliens and T2: Judgment Day changing the way we see studio sequels. With that in mind, Cameron is behind four massive sequels to his $2.7 billion hit, Avatar, and expectations couldn’t be higher.
The next installment is heading to theaters this December and Cameron is already hyping up the string of sequels while speaking to Empire Magazine. Stating that when he pitched the movies to 20th Century Fox, he imagined them as similar to the Lord of The Rings novels, but would have to write them first which sort of explains why he waited until he completed the four scripts before even shooting Avatar 2.
“What I said to the Fox regime at the time was, ‘I’ll do it, but we’ve got to play a larger game here. I don’t want to just do a movie and do a movie and do a movie. I want to tell a bigger story,” he explains. That meant a comparison with a certain literary saga. “I said, ‘Imagine a series of novels like The Lord of The Rings existed, and we’re adapting them.’ Now, that was great in theory, but then I had to go create the frickin’ novels from which to adapt it.”
“I had to think long and hard whether I even wanted to make another Avatar film because it was kind of ours to lose,” Cameron explains. “When you’ve done something that’s been that transcendent in terms of success, do you really want to go try and do that again? There’s a lot of pressure on it. I thought about it for a good two years before we finally made a deal.”
Hopefully, with all the time and energy put into the scripts, we will see much stronger writing with these sequels. The biggest critique of the first film was how thin the plot was and how it mirrored things like Dances With Wolves and the 1992 animated environmentalist film Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.
Some of the more interesting aspects of the sequel see Stephen Lang playing a Na’vi avatar of his dead character Colonel Quaritch and Sigourney Weaver playing a completely different role as she plays Kiri, the adoptive daughter of Sam Worthington’s Jake Sully, and Zoe Saldaña’s Neytiri.
Avatar: The Way of Water is set to be released by Disney on December 16.
Earlier this week, Sony Pictures finally released the first teaser trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home and ended up landing an impressive 355+ million views, dwarfing Avengers: Endgame.
For the first time in the cinematic history of Spider-Man, our friendly neighborhood hero is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a Super Hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.
The movie is still set to be released on December 17, but it’s unclear, officially, who shot the superhero sequel. However, a potential listing on IMDB might point towards the cinematographer of James Cameron’s Avatar and Fox’s Dark Phoenix, Mauro Fiore.
The former pic landed Fiore an Oscar for Best Cinematography in 2009 with other film credits such as Infinite, The Island and Training Day.
UPDATE: Gaffer Josh Davis mentioned in an interview with to Lite Gear back in February that he’d be working with Fiore on the Spider-Man sequel. Looks like he’s been confirmed.
“I’m currently working on the third installment of Spider-Man with actor Tom Holland, DP Mauro Fiore, and Director Jon Watts. It’s my largest job as a gaffer thus far, and wow– what a ride! Be careful what you ask for. Be thankful for the people that help you get there. Be grateful for the ones that help you get it done.”
We should be clear that we haven’t been able to confirm this listing is legit, but will likely be able to know either way when the marketing really kicks in.
The cast consists of Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, Jamie Foxx as Electro, Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus, Jon Favreau, Hannibal Buress, Jacob Batalon, J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, Marisa Tomei, Angourie Rice, Martin Starr, Tony Revolori, Paula Newsome, and J.B Smoove.
We’ve now have concrete confirmations that Benedict Wong and possibly Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn/Green Goblin will appear as well. We see a pumpkin bomb show up, someone trying to attack Peter in the shadows, Electro using his powers, and Alfred Molina’s glorious Doctor Octopus.
According to James Cameron and producer Jon Landau, principal photography has wrapped on Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 (both motion-capture and live-action portions), but there are two more films to be made with their attention moving on to Avatar 4 an Avatar 5.
One of the unanswered questions of these four upcoming sequels is how they’ll be bringing back Stephen Lang’s villainous Colonel Miles Quaritch, as he died in the original movie. However, they have the ability of to clone Na’vi bodies, aka, avatars and there is assumption that Quaritch could simply be a clone or RDA having multiple versions Quaritch all over their off-world operations.
Lang recently spoke to Collider while promoting his horror film Breathe 2 and dished about his reaction to reading the Avatar 5 script (a bulk of the scripts were written before filming on Avatar 2 started). Highlighting his emotional reaction and calling it “beautiful” multiple times.
“When I finished the last script, I was weeping. I just thought it was so beautiful. Yeah, the final script, because he’s telling a great, great story, an original story, a beautiful, beautiful story, and I was just incredibly moved by it. I hope and I trust and believe that audiences will be too, because one of the things that he does really, really well is he moves it from the page to the stage in a way that that is very literal. You know what I mean? You really see it. What you read is what you get from him, I think, and more.”
Even more interesting than Quaritch’s resurrection, is how the dynamic will look like with Edie Falco’s (Sopranos) General Ardmore joining the franchise as the new head of RDA operations on Pandora and how compelling that new villain will be.
Baring any other delays, Avatar 2 will be released on December 22, 2022.
Friday marked the 25th anniversary of German director Roland Emmerich‘s alien invasion film “Independence Day,” but it wasn’t the only big sci-fi spectacle he had been working on for 20th Century Fox.
In the wake of David Fincher‘s “Alien 3,” it felt like 20th Century Fox was over the “Alien” franchise, and Sigourney Weaver leading it. Ellen Ripley had killed herself at the end of the film making subsequent sequels seemingly moot after their lead character’s death and flopping at the box office. Thinking they were done with the Ripley saga, between “Alien 3” and “Alien Resurrection” the studio tried to develop an early incarnation of an “Alien vs. Predator” movie years before the Paul W.S. Anderson version.
A rumor appeared in 1992 (same year that “Universal Soldier” is released) that Emmerich was going to direct an “AVP” film based on the popular Dark Horse Comics run, this wasn’t hard to imagine because 1990’s “Predator 2” had given audiences a nod to the comic book crossover as they added a xenomorph skull on a wall of trophies in the predator ship at the end of the film. In 1994, “Stargate” is released and that success leads to another original humans vs. aliens project with the 1996 box office juggernaut “Independence Day,” Toho and TriStar Pictures feel confident enough to allow Roland Emmerich to direct a modern “Godzilla” reboot using CGI special effects.
In 1996, “Alien Resurrection” begins shooting in Los Angeles with French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet overseeing the sequel and Ellen Ripley is brought back via the wonders of cloning (originally going to be a clone of Newt), thanks “Jurassic Park.” The film ends with the survivors landing in Paris and leaves the door open for a fifth installment.
In the November 1997 issue of Starlog Magazine, screenwriter Dean Devlin (“Stargate,” “Independence Day,” “Godzilla“) was interviewed about his Fox Television series “The Visitor” and asked about the status with “Alien vs. Predator” he replied, “For the time being, it’s dead. We wanted to do it if they had not just decided to do ‘Alien Resurrection,’ and now we’re all just waiting around to see how that film does. If it really works, the studio is going to want to continue the franchise with just the alien. If that were to happen, then we won’t be involved at all.”
This interview taking place before “Alien Resurrection”s late November release and while the sequel made slightly more than “Alien 3,” it still didn’t meet studio expectations. The following year, Roland and Dean released their critical disaster “Godzilla,” which was ridiculed and likely could have been a reason why 20th Century Fox ultimately didn’t want them handling a crossover to their two lucrative sci-fi franchises.
Speaking of “Predator 2,” Arnold Schwarzenegger was originally going to return as Dutch in the sequel before the role was reworked as Peter Keyes for actor Gary Busey and there has been a longstanding rumor that Arnold was going to star in this “AVP” movie, there might be something behind that.
In 1991, before Emmerich’s “Universal Soldier” starring Jean-Claude Van Damme was released in 1992, Schwarzenegger visited the film’s set, and we have a bunch of photos that documented that visit. There is a possibility that Arnold was there to get a read on Roland Emmerich and speak to Jean-Claude Van Damme about his experience working with him.
JCVD’s star was rising in the 1990s and had played the first incarnation of the alien hunter in “Predator” before leaving during Stan Winston‘s redesign of the creature (with some help from James Cameron) to lead his action film “Bloodsport” instead of being hidden behind a predator costume.
Producers had been trying to lure him back to the “Predator” franchise every chance they got and a crossover with a huge budget along with the right director could be attractive enough for Arnold to get involved. A reminder, the studio was looking to move past Weaver since Ripley was dead and Schwarzenegger was hot as a pistol at the box office, Dutch was theoretically still alive and every “Predator” sequel since there have been attempts to have him appear.
“Something similar to what we did with Aliens. A bunch of great characters, and of course Sigourney [Weaver]. I’ve even discussed the possibility of putting him [Arnold Schwarzenegger] into the Alien movie,” Cameron told the BBC in 2003 about the possibility of adding Schwarzenegger to his “Alien 5.”
Paul W.S. Anderson begins shooting “Alien vs. Predator” in Prague at the end of 2003 and essentially kills “Alien 5,” finally ending the Ellen Ripley saga for good.
James Cameron pivots to “Avatar” and the film still holds the global box office record thanks to a re-release with four sequels on the horizon.
The original version of “Alien 5” would see Ridley Scott direct with Cameron producing and co-writing (possibly with “Alien Resurrection” screenwriter Joss Whedon writing too) and would take Ripley to the homeworld of the xenomorph. The project was never made, but Ridley Scott returned to tackle his prequel “Prometheus” attempting to explore the origin of Space Jockey (engineers) and was a producer on Neill Blomkamp‘s new “Alien 5” incarnation (approved by James Cameron) that would have acted as a direct sequel to “Aliens” (ignoring the other two sequels) before that also stalled, “Alien: Covenant” stepping in to fill the void.
Scott is currently producing Noah Hawley‘s “Alien” series at FX that will be set on Earth and return the franchise to its class warfare root. He’s also talked-up a third prequel film still being in the works that has previously used the working title of “Alien: Awakening.”
You might remember a cheeky video that was posted by Vin Diesel on Instagram back in April 2019 that had the Fast & Furious actor visiting director James Cameron on the Manhattan Beach Studios set of the Avatar sequels, where they shoot the motion-capture sequences. This originally gave fans the impression that Diesel could be joining the Cameron’s new Avatar movies in some capacity but nothing was ever officially announced, only speculated.
This was only bolstered because Vin’s Fast & Furious franchise co-star Michelle Rodriguez played SecOps pilot Trudy Chacon in the first Avatar installment.
Well, MTV News caught-up with Diesel during the promotional rounds for F9 and asked him directly about joining the massive sci-fi franchise. However, it sounds like if we’ll see Diesel in these movies, it won’t be until Avatar 4 or Avatar 5 as he says he hasn’t filmed anything “yet.” It’s been well established that James Cameron has completed motion-capture/live-action photography on Avatar 2 an Avatar 3.
Diesel responded with the following when asked if he’ll appear in the sequels, “I have spent time with [James Cameron], but I have not filmed yet. [smiles while pausing] I love James Cameron, and I love the series, and I think it’s safe to say that we will be working together.”
Hopefully, Avatar 2 will stick to it’s current release date of December 16, 2022.
AVATAR – On the lush alien world of Pandora live the Na’vi, beings who appear primitive but are highly evolved. Because the planet’s environment is poisonous, human/Na’vi hybrids, called Avatars, must link to human minds to allow for free movement on Pandora. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paralyzed former Marine, becomes mobile again through one such Avatar and falls in love with a Na’vi woman (Zoe Saldana). As a bond with her grows, he is drawn into a battle for the survival of her world.
With principle photography (live-action and motion-capture) completed on both Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 there should be some celebration involved as many people weren’t sure if James Cameron was going to be able to complete all four of his sequels. They still have to finish-up Avatar 4 and Avatar 5, but having two in the post-production phase should be a step in the right direction to delivering on his ambitious plan.
However, it sounds like things didn’t go terribly smoothly in the development process according to James Cameron. During a chat on The Marianne Williamson Podcast (via The Playlist) the filmmaker revealed that he had to threaten to fire screenwriters because they weren’t listening to his instructions about waiting until figuring out what worked in the first film before adding new ideas and stories. Despite the “threat of firing,” it doesn’t look like he followed through with it.
CAMERON: “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. 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.’”
The writing team on the first three Avatar sequels includes James Cameron, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno. They all share “story by” credit then divided-up the screenplays across Avatar 2 to Avatar 4. Shane Salerno co-writing the finale, Avatar 5, with James Cameron.
Cameron is known to be a complete control-freak on his productions and micromanaging the script development on four films is certainly something unsurprising given how much time he would be investing filming the movies and wanting to make sure he wasn’t wasting time/money pointless things. He’s also a writer himself and was closely working with them to execute his vision that would be told over five different films.
Jim also doesn’t suffer people working on his projects that don’t listen to him and has had to fire people even deep in production. Luckily, it doesn’t look like anyone was actually fired off the films.
Deadline is reporting that estimates from China’s box office has given Avatar enough money from the re-release to have surpassed Avengers: Endgame, giving the James Cameron sci-fi movie the box office title again making it the highest grossing film. That’s until Disney re-releases Avengers: Endgame and the record flips back to Marvel Studios at some point.
The China reissue of the 2009 3D sci-fi phenomenon had taken an estimated RMB 58M ($8.9M) through 5PM local time on Saturday after re-releasing on Friday in the market. This closes and surpasses what was a $7.82M gap between the two films prior to China’s resissue. Disney/Marvel’s Endgame previously snapped up the top global crown from Avatar in July 2019. The current (and fluid) Avatar global total is an estimated $2,798,579,794 versus Endgame‘s $2,797,501,328.
It’ll be interesting to see if the domestic or global box office will ever fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic as many don’t believe we’ll see blockbuster movies surpassing $1-2 billion grosses any time soon. While certain international markets might be able to go back to “normal” sooner than places that were harder hit by the virus such as the United States.
The re-release comes at an important time as James Cameron is prepping to release four Avatar sequels and making sure Chinese audiences remember the franchise will be a key element of those films making top-dollar when they’re eventually released starting with Avatar 2 in December 2022. I’m extremely curious to see if Jim can replicate the success of the original film four more times.
Filming on the multiple sequels has been taking place in California for the motion-capture portion and the live-action scenes being shot at Stone Street Studios in Wellington, New Zealand. Hopefully, we’ll end up getting a teaser trailer for Avatar 2 before the end of the year from Disney/20th Century Studios.
James Cameron’s Avatar released back in 2009 was a huge phenomenon and became the biggest box office release globally at $2.79 billion, but eventually lost that spot when Avengers: Endgame took the record away earning $2.797 billion. Now, there is word from The Hollywood Reporter that China has approved a re-release of Avatar later this week.
China’s Film Bureau has approved a surprise plan for the director’s 2009 sci-fi epic Avatar to get a wide re-release in the country on Friday, according to two sources at Chinese movie theater companies, which were informed of the arrangements. The technologically trailblazing blockbuster will be made available to exhibitors for a nationwide release in both Imax 3D and ordinary 3D.
They point-out if Avatar earns $7.4 million it will regain the box office record.
Bringing the film back to China is a good way to prime a new generation for the upcoming sequels and reminding previous audiences about the franchise, since many likely haven’t seen it or haven’t watched it over the last ten-plus years.
James Cameron has been shooting Avatar 2, Avatar 3, and parts of Avatar 4 between California and Wellington, New Zealand. The first sequel, Avatar 2, is set to be released on December 16th, 2022.
AVATAR – On the lush alien world of Pandora live the Na’vi, beings who appear primitive but are highly evolved. Because the planet’s environment is poisonous, human/Na’vi hybrids, called Avatars, must link to human minds to allow for free movement on Pandora. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paralyzed former Marine, becomes mobile again through one such Avatar and falls in love with a Na’vi woman (Zoe Saldana). As a bond with her grows, he is drawn into a battle for the survival of her world.
Avatar franchise producer Jon Landau posted on Instagram that they’ve finally completed live-action photography on Avatar 3, after finishing up Avatar 2 months ago. This means they can move closer to finishing them while also moving on to Avatar 4 and Avatar 5.
The image looks to be from a wrap party. Just so people are aware that New Zealand is currently free from COVID-19 which explains why they’re interacting so closely in the photo below as the country has returned to normalcy.
LANDAU: “Celebrating the wrap of live action photography—with Jemaine Clement, Brendan Cowell and James Cameron. Congrats to the entire crew in both New Zealand and Los Angeles. Incredible work!”
We’re excited to finally get to see some footage from James Cameron’s Avatar sequels and during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, franchise actor Stephen Lang sort of broke how how much filming he’s done so far on the projects as he is reprising the role of Colonel Miles Quaritch. Revealing he’s shot for two years already for Avatar 2 (finished filming) and Avatar 3 (expected to be finish soon) along with a scene already for Avatar 4.
LANG: “I haven’t shot anything in probably close to a year. But I’d shot for two years before that, so I’m good. I know there is still a huge amount of work to be done. As far as I can tell, Avatar 2 — it’s shot.”
“I have no doubt that when Avatar 2 does come out, it’s going to be the movie he feels it needs to be. I’d say the same for 3, 4 and 5. We haven’t got to 4 or 5 yet, even though we have shot a scene from 4.”
In a world of cloning and new “avatar” bodies a resurrection for the very dead Colonel Quaritch isn’t terribly strange but they haven’t really explained how they plan on bringing him back. I have to assume that RDA has the kind of money laying around to clone a bunch of Colonels installing them all over their off-world operations.
Quaritch isn’t the only baddie in the new movies as Sopranos star Edie Falco will play General Ardmore, who is heading up a different RDA installation on Pandora called The Bridgehead.
I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll start showing us more polished promotional materials beyond set photos.
THE RONIN 