Producer Jon Landau Says AVATAR 5 Will Return to Earth, and the Film's Leaked Title Is Incorrect
We are about to get our second Avatar movie over a decade after the first one premiered. The first film was a record-breaking smash hit at the box office, but it is yet to be seen whether fans will show up in the same way for this next installment, titled Avatar: The Way of Water. If it does well, director James Cameron has a third, fourth, and fifth film ready to go in the coming years. If they aren’t as well received as he hopes, he has already made the third film, which will probably be released, and we will have to see where it goes after that.
In the case we do get to see Cameron’s full dream realized, we have a few details about the fifth story to share with you. In a recent interview with io9, the film’s producer Jon Landau was asked if the Earthlings who were defeated and left Pandora at the end of the original film will return to bring war to the Na’vi. He wouldn’t say but he did say that Avatar 5 will go to Earth.
“Well, it’s funny. I wasn’t going to talk about it, but I’ve now subsequently heard that Jim has talked about it a little bit. In movie five there is a section of the story where we go to Earth. And we go to it to open people’s eyes, open Neytiri’s eyes, to what exists on Earth.”
The report then added that while that seems like a huge spoiler to reveal Neytiri is still alive going into the fifth and final Avatar, Landau is smarter than that. He wouldn’t casually drop that information unless it was incredibly obvious or unimportant to the overall story.
Landau continued to explain why Neytiri will eventually need to be clued into what’s happening on Earth. It’s because she doesn’t understand that Earth isn’t just filled with evil people who want to pillage Pandora.
“Earth is not just represented by the RDA [the evil organization in the film; the abbreviation stands for Resources Development Administration]. Just like you’re defined by the choices you make in life, not all humans are bad. Not all Na’vi are good. And that’s the case here on Earth. And we want to expose Neytiri to that.”
He went on to add:
“I think right now we want each movie to do exactly what the first movie did. We want [audiences] to go, ‘Wow. Where else could they go? They just showed us everything on Pandora.’ Then you go, ‘Holy cow. They’re going to the oceans. Wow. The oceans are amazing.’ Okay, that’s over. Where can it go? Same thing from an emotional story. We end the [first] movie with Jake and this transformation. But we’ve suffered the loss of [Sigourney Weaver’s character] Grace, and we’ve suffered other things. We want people to come out of this movie with an emotional resolution that both calls for a yearning to go back to those characters and to the world.”
And while a few years ago several titles for the Avatar sequels reportedly leaked, which included the accurate title The Way of Water, Landau says not to expect Avatar 5, or any of the rest, to line up.
“We have decided on titles, but I would not go by those other three titles that were out there. You know, if you roll the dice one in six times, you’ll pick the right number.”
It will be interesting to see how the future of the franchise all pans out. Avatar: The Way of Water hits theaters on December 16th. Are you excited for it?