Avatar 2 and 3 to Shoot Back to Back

Posted in Film
By Martin Roberts on 21 Oct 2010

“Our plan right now is to do two and three as a single large production and release them a year apart,” says James Cameron (in an interview with Coming Soon) about the second and third installments in his monolithic new Avatar franchise. Avatar has already become a unprecedented cash cow; a bovine behemoth that has already benefited from a cinematic re-release (Avatar: Special Edition) and will soon benefit further from a special edition DVD and Blu-ray release as well as a delayed home 3D release.

But let’s not be too cynical. Avatar-bashing has floated around ever since the film’s release and has only grown since it made its billions, but the fact is the film was, despite its flaws, something of a delight, and we at Fan the Fire are certainly looking forward to spending more time on Pandora. The question on fans’ lips, then, will be: ‘When?’ Cameron isn’t entirely sure. Some of you will know that Cameron has recently been extensively linked with an epic Cleopatra project rumoured to star Angelina Jolie, although his reactions to those rumours was ambiguous: “I haven’t made any decisions about that.”

He did say that whatever he does, he isn’t going to take on another project once Avatar 2 has started shooting. After that, he intends to move straight into number three before taking on anything else. “It’s really a question of whether or not I do one [another project] between now and when we start [Avatar] two,” says Cameron. “We’re evaluating how much of our techwork and how much of our facility work it’s going to take. That’s not decided as of right now. I’d love to just start on ‘Avatar 2’ right now, but I don’t know if that’s possible or if it makes sense to wait.”

FAN THE FIRE is a digital magazine about lifestyle and creative culture. Launching back in 2005 as a digital publication about Sony’s PSP handheld games console, we’ve grown and evolved now covering the arts and lifestyle, architecture, design and travel.