AVATAR 2 Reportedly Starts Filming in April

Originally set to come out in December of 2014, James Cameron's Avatar 2 was recently bumped from its December 2017 release date and left in a limbo in which its release date is unspecified. But now a new report indicates that though we don't know when the film will hit theaters, we do know when Cameron plans to begin filming.

MyEntertainmentWorld (via ComingSoon) says that shooting is set to start in New Zealand in April of this year. Cameron recently spoke about bringing these movies to life:

"But I don’t consider [hitting a release date] to be as important as the fact that when we get all three films done, we drop them a year apart. I call it a meta-narrative that runs across the three movies. Each film stands alone, but it also tells one much larger story."

The plan is to film three new sequels back-to-back-to-back, so we'll see if that plan actually holds true or if he has to come up with some creative workaround to make this new trilogy.

The big question, of course, is: once these movies are done, will anyone care? It's been over six years since Avatar came out, and it essentially left no cultural footprint beyond its massive box office haul. But Avatar 2 is the follow-up to the highest-grossing movie of all time, something that even a juggernaut like Star Wars: The Force Awakens doesn't seem likely to overcome at this point. A big part of the reason for that is that Star Wars is not nearly as beloved in all international markets as it is in America, whereas Avatar did major, major business in foreign territories. Will those audiences turn out to support these sequels in the same way they did the original? Will Americans be interested in returning to Pandora again? What do you think?