Tag: Josh Friedman

Posted on in Film News

James Cameron Says He Threatened To Fire Screenwriters Working On The ‘Avatar’ Sequels

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.

SOURCE: THE MARIANNE WILLIAMSON PODCAST

Posted on in Film News

Wes Ball Reveals New ‘Planet of The Apes’ Movie Is Written By ‘Avatar 2’ Screenwriter Josh Friedman – Teases Weta Digital’s Return?

Despite original reports that Wes Ball’s new Planet of The Apes film would be a hard reboot of the franchise, the director has come out publicly to debunk that the film will be ignoring or undoing the work of the last three films. 

While speaking with Discussing Film, Wes dropped an interesting tidbit about the creative team working on the new Apes film that includes Avatar 2 and Terminator: Dark Fate screenwriter Josh Friedman tackling the script. 

BALL: “We were using the same material, the same kind of technology, we were using a lot of the same people involved – I had asked Andy Serkis to join Mouse Guard. So it was kind of natural fit. I understand where it came from and my big thing was: what do you do for a Planet of the Apes sequel? One, those last three movies are one of the great trilogies we have in modern movie history. They are just so well done. They honored the original movies they sprang from, the Charlton Heston movies, but they grounded it in a modern sensibility and it just worked. Caesar is one of the great movie characters that we’ll have throughout time. So what do you do to follow that up, right? At the same time, I wasn’t interested in doing a part four either. We want to also do our own thing.”

“We have a take. We have a way of staying in the universe that was created before us, but we’re also opening ourselves up in being able to do some really cool new stuff. Again, I’m trying to be careful here. I’ll say this, for fans of the original three don’t worry – you’re in good hands. The original writers and producers that came up with Rise and Dawn, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, they’re also on board with this. Josh Friedman is writing this thing, a lot of the same crew is kind of involved. We will feel like we’re part of that original trilogy, but at the same time we’re able to do some really cool new stuff. It will be really exciting to see on the biggest screen possible.”

It sounds like that “technology” tidbit would infer that Weta Digital will be making a return for his incarnation. Weta had previously worked on all three of the recent films. 

Interestingly enough, Wes worked closely with Weta Digital in the past on his Maze Runner sequels Mazer Runner: The Scorch Trials and Maze Runner: The Death Cure. 

He was also set to work again with Weta for his fantasy film Mouse Guard before Disney and 20th Century Studios pulled the plug on it post-merger. The graphic novel adaptation was going to be produced by Matt Reeves with Andy Serkis taking a lead role as the villain. 

The director also mentions they’re still in the scripting and production design phase of the film but could begin “virtual production” soon.

BALL: “Well, Planet of the Apes is moving forward and we have a giant art team cranking away on some incredible concept art. We’ve got the screenplay continuing to move forward, that will take the time that it takes and so that’s all good. Planet of the Apes is moving forward baby! Not only that, but we could actually be in virtual production relatively soon because it’s largely a CG movie.”

I’m really curious if they’re going to push the franchise deep into the future side of things. As the recent trilogy only covered the settings of the final films in the franchise that took cues from the final two installments, Conquest and Battle. 

I think it’ll be interesting to see what the ape society looks like in two thousand years or at the very least a couple of hundred years. Wes can surely honor the look and legacy of the first three films while pushing the franchise in a new direction to give it new life along with showcasing what ape cities could like in the future. It also allows them to bring back Andy Serkis to play another chimpanzee character, not unlike how Roddy McDowall played Cornelius and then later on his son Caesar. 

SOURCE: DISCUSSING FILM