John Cameron’s long-threatened assembly line of Avatar sequels has been moving ahead at a relatively relaxed pace in the public eye. When the potential 2018 release of Avatar 2 (The Quickening) was officially 86ed, it wasn’t too much of a surprise. The insane amount of money earned by the first film worldwide shows that there’s definitely interest and financial incentive to make more of these films, it’s just not something that seems to be felt in the anticipation cockles like a superhero joint or space adventure. Maybe some locked in dates will change that.
Announced with the assistance of the pseudo-cult-y photo you see nestled above, the franchise is beginning concurrent production on four sequels. At the moment, there aren’t any flashy titles for the four (4!) Avatar titles on the way, but there’s bound to be a colon and extra words on the way late on, one imagines. Avatar 2 is scheduled for December 18, 2020, Avatar 3 is slated for December 17, 2021, the theaters go Avatar-free for a few years, Avatar 4 breaks that hiatus on December 20, 2024 and the last movie (of this particular series) Avatar 5 debuts on December 19, 2025. I want to go on record saying that if these release dates breed Avatar carols, cinema should be ABOLISHED.
Cameron sounds remarkably keen on he has ahead of him for a little under a decade.
“So I know where I’m going to be for the next eight years of my life,” offered Cameron speaking with Variety last month. “It’s not an unreasonable time frame if you think about it. It took us four-and-a-half years to make one movie and now we’re making four. We’re full tilt boogie right now. This is my day job and pretty soon we’ll be 24/7. We’re pretty well designed on all our creatures and sets. It’s pretty exciting stuff. I wish I could share with the world. But we have to preserve a certain amount of showmanship and we’re going to draw that curtain when the time is right.”
This is the James Cameron dilemma, now isn’t it? Avatar has proven financially that there is audience that will pay billions to see these films, so it’d be mad to full-on doubt him again. (Yes, Titanic ticks that box too.) Still, even with the returning cast, it’s hard to really measure the cultural impact Avatar had on the average moviegoer. If Avatar 2 doesn’t connect in 2020, that makes things a tad uncomfortable for the next three movies coming after that. Just saying.
(Via Variety)