Avatar came out in 2009, the year after Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe. By the time Avatar 2 finally — hopefully — comes out next December, there will have been 28 Marvel movies (it’s an apt comparison considering Disney owns both Captain America and the Na’vi). Why such a lengthy delay?
“The scripts are the blueprint from which we work,” producer told Jon Landau told Total Film magazine. “So a large portion of our time was writing… with the challenge that each of those four scripts had to individually resolve itself in a story that concludes with a big emotional resolution – but when you look at them as a whole, the connected story arc of all four movies creates an even larger epic saga.” In other words, the decade-long wait between Avatar and Avatar 2 is because James Cameron & Co. weren’t working on one film at a time — they were working on four sequels at once. If anyone can pull this off, it’s the guy who’s made two of the three highest-grossing movies of all-time.
Landau also teased some plot details about Avatar 2.
The Sullys’ idyllic life is disrupted when the RDA mining operation returns to Pandora, forcing Jake to take the family to “what is perceived as a safe harbor” at the reef. “And when you get to the reef, there’s a clan we call the Metkayina,” continues Landau. “The Sullys are no longer in the environment that they know, the rainforest. They become the fish out of water. They become the fish out of water both culturally and just environmentally.”
[extremely Milhouse voice] When are they going to get to the seed bearing?!?
Avatar 2 is scheduled to come out on December 16, 2022.
(Via Total Film)