Why Avatar 2, 3, 4, and 5 Have All Been Delayed 8 Times So Far

 

12 years ago Avatar released into theaters and became the highest-grossing film of all time with a total box office gross of over $2.7 billion until Avengers: Endgame temporarily dethroned it with its $2.79 billion gross only to be matched by Avatar reclaiming its spot as no. 1 with a re-release in China earlier this year raising its box office gross to a total of $2.8 billion. Avatar starred Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, a soldier pitted between two worlds when he finds himself becoming protective of the exotic mind-bending planet that his love interest Neytiri played by Zoe Saldana calls home which is threatened by the dangerous and formidable Colonel played by Stephen Lang. The film was a break-through in 3D technology stunning audiences across the globe and James Cameron, the man also responsible for the cinematic hit that was Titanic got to work on sequels that would return audiences to the world of Pandora. However, time marched onward and delay after delay on the development of these sequels which now look close to actual fruition have seen these films delayed a total of 8 times over the course of the last dozen years with Avatar 2 the first of 4 planned sequels supposedly scheduled to hit theaters in December of 2022. 

 

 

So why exactly has there been so many numerous delays to these Avatar sequels? Well it goes all the way back to 2010 when James Cameron announced he would be writing and directing Avatar 2 and 3 and film them back-to-back with a targeted release date of 2014 for Avatar 2. However, delay after delay has pushed back the Avatar sequels time and time again due to Cameron’s desire to push the boundaries of what technology can do on film and chart new territory. Avatar 2 is set to spend a lot of time focusing on the underwater world of Pandora and Cameron is reportedly using ground-breaking underwater technology to tell his story in the most immersive way possible. 

 

 

 

Initially Cameron was only intending to make 2 Avatar sequels but that number has since grown to 4 sequels with an expanded cast ensemble that includes Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Eddie Falco, Michelle Yeoh, Jemaine Clement, Oona Chaplin, and Vin Diesel. Avatar 2 picks up 12 years after the events of the first film with Sam Worthington’s character Jake Sully raising a family on Pandora alongside his wife played by Zoe Saldana and having made the decision to permanently transfer his consciousness into his avatar body as he takes on the role as leader of his people. The reported budget of these sequels has been reported by Deadline to be a combined $1 billion which may sound like a lot but when you consider how many Hollywood blockbusters get made for $250 million a piece its actually quite a conservative number. A lot of groundbreaking technology is being utilized in these sequels with Cameron fully intent on being a pioneer in the realms of 3D and motion-capture technology. The Avatar films VFX senior vice president of Production Services & Technology for Lightstorm Entertainment Geoff Burdick had the following to say about the sequels’ visual effects technology:

“The technology has advanced leaps and bounds at every conceivable level since the first Avatar,” says Burdick who worked on the original. “We are shooting higher resolution than the first and at higher frame rates and still in 3D. Three years ago, when we were looking for production technology, we knew these were our parameters but not exactly what the solution was.”

 

 

Also Cameron is pushing for higher frame rates (HFR) to be utilized in these films which is putting massive amounts of demand on data for the 4K 48 FPS shooting measures. The water technology which is a big part of the story is an equally challenging obstacle as Cameron puts it:

“The problem with water is not the underwater part, but the interface between the air and the water, which forms a moving mirror,” Cameron explained. “That moving mirror reflects all the dots and markers, and it creates a bunch of false markers. It’s a little bit like a fighter plane dumping a bunch of chaff to confuse the radar system of a missile. So, we’ve had to figure out how to get around that problem.  

 

“Basically, whenever you add water to any problem, it just gets ten times harder. So, we’ve thrown a lot of horsepower, innovation, imagination and new technology at the problem, and it’s taken us about a year and a half now to work out how we’re going to do it.”

 

The main driving force behind the story for Avatar 2 and its subsequent sequels will be the return of the RDA and their mining operations to upend the peaceful lives of Sully’s family and his people forcing them to go on the run. Stephen Lang will be reprising his role as the Colonel and the villain for all 4 films. Lang had the following to say about what his reaction was to reading the script for the final Avatar film, Avatar 5. 

“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.” 

 

 

Additionally he praised Cameron’s masterful and innovative work behind the scenes:

“He's definitely pushing it big time on this one. I'm not giving away any trade secrets to say that, but I remember working on a sequence with him, there was an issue of scale going on. That’s all I’ll say. And it was defeating. It took and brought everything to kind of a halt. There was a problem that no one else recognized except him at the moment. So he had to come up with a solution. Anyway, we basically shut down or started working on something else. The next day, he came to me kind of really excited and said, 'I figured out the algorithm to do this.' He stared this algorithm and I'm looking at him thinking, 'What the hell are you talking about? I have no idea what you're talking about.' But he did. He created a problem ... there was a problem because he wanted a scene, something to happen, and then he solved it. He's been doing that for his entire career. And it's pretty cool, pretty amazing.” 

 

 

Cameron announced his scripts for Avatar 2, 3, 4, and 5 were complete in February of 2017 and filming for Avatar 2 and 3 began later that year. Filming has been ongoing for years now with motion-capture and live-action filming being a tall order order to pull off and when the pandemic hit in 2020 production was brought to a halt but thankfully filming was able to resume within 4 and half months time as their filming location New Zealand had the COVID situation well under control compared to a lot of other places in the world. And just last fall Cameron announced that Avatar 2 filming was 100% complete, with Avatar 3 95% complete. 

 

 

Now I know some skeptics may think we will never see these long-delayed sequels but it certainly seems like things are well on track for Avatar 2’s release on December 16, 2022 to be followed by Avatar 3 in December of 2024, Avatar 4 in December of 2026, and Avatar 5 in December of 2028. I don’t know if there's really a need for so many Avatar sequels but if Cameron is able to tell a compelling story accompanied by ground-breaking technological breakthroughs in filmmaking I’m more than game to give the mastermind behind Titanic a chance to deliver with the same level of grandeur and cinematic ambition that he seems determined to showcase to the world.