James Cameron's AVATAR Trilogy Won't Start Until 2017
Director James Cameron has announced that he will delay the start of his upcoming Avatar trilogy for a year. The first sequel to Avatar now won't be released until late 2017.
The reasoning behind this push is because writing the three sequels has apparently been a complex job, and Cameron needs the extra time to get the scripts in place and ready for filming. The plan is to release the three films over three consecutive years. The first film was originally supposed to be released in 2016. Cameron said at a press conference in New Zealand:
"There's a layer of complexity in getting the story to work as a saga across three films that you don't get when you're making a stand-alone film."
His goal was to have the scripts for the films completed by the end of this month. He is overseeing a team of writers working on the screenplays and making sure he gets what he wants out of them.
"We're writing three simultaneously. And we've done that so that everything tracks throughout the three films. We're not just going to do one and then make up another one and another one after that. And parallel with that, we're doing all the design. So we've designed all the creatures and the environments."
Cameron went on to explain that it was important that each film linked forward to the next one in a satisfying way. He wanted to make sure each film came to a resolution so that the audience wasn't left hanging like we were with Peter Jackson 's Middle Earth films. That will be good, as most moviegoers don't like to be left hanging.
The first Avatar film was released in 2009. By the time the first sequel comes out it will have been eight years. Will Avatar even be relevant by then? Will people even be excited for them? Are people even excited about seeing the sequels now? I know the first film is the highest grossing movie in history, but I don't think that guarantees the success of the sequels. I guess the buzz will just have to rebuild in the months leading up to their release.
The important thing to take away from all this is that Cameron is taking the time to do these films right. And by the time the movies are released, the special effects are probably going to look insane!
Source: THR