There's a ton of new Avatar movies planned, and the dates are constantly shifting. But there's a very good reason the long-awaited Avatar sequels are seemingly taking forever, and filmmaker James Cameron provided us a with what seems like an explanation.
"It doesn't matter how much you dress it up with great production design and great visual effects. If the story is not working, if you don't connect to the characters, it's just simply not going to work," Cameron said at the Television Critics Association press tour for his new AMC show Visionaries: James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction.
"Of course, we can't afford for it not to work, the budget level that we are dealing with. But, of course, you always have to give yourself permission as an artist to fail no matter what the stakes are," he added. "You've got to try stuff. The least safe thing you can do is try to be safe."
It's almost been 10 years since the first Avatar film wowed audiences in theaters, and Cameron discussed how that film influenced his approach to the sequels. "I think that the lesson for me from the first film that I've applied to the new films is that the more fantastic the imagery, the more otherworldly and the more you are pushing out to the edge of what's possible in terms of bringing imaginative imagery to the screen, the more it has to be grounded in relationship and in truth and in heart," he explained. "And so I'm hopefully doing that in spades with the new films."
Thankfully, Cameron has a star-studded cast lined up, which includes Titanic's Kate Winslet. "I've got an incredible cast," Cameron praised. "I'm always very cognizant of the casting. I've worked very hard to cast this, to find some new, young actors coming up that have incredible heart and that are just amazing."
Barring any setbacks, Avatar 2 is set to open in theaters on December 18, 2020, followed by Avatar 3 on December 17, 2021. Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 are slated for December 20, 2024 and December 19, 2025, respectively, but anything can happen by then.