The sequel to James Cameron’s Avatar has taken its sweet time getting here, but it looks as if we’re finally going to get our hands on the movie by the end of this year.
The sci-fi adventure briefly lost the title of ‘highest grossing movie of all-time’ to Avengers: Endgame, but claimed it back last year following a special cinema re-release in China.
Nevertheless, it has been argued that interest in this franchise has waned during its 13-year absence, especially as that timeframe has seen the likes of Marvel Studios change the landscape of blockbuster cinema.
However, the team behind the movie seem confident that the lush vistas of Pandora will tempt audiences back, including star Zoe Saldana, who has teased the film’s technological breakthroughs and emotional heft.
“He was finally able to crack that challenge; that whole thing that you can’t imitate water virtually through performance capture,” she began in an interview with reporter Kevin McCarthy.
“That was just a challenge he had taken upon himself and it took him years and he did it. It’s powerful, it’s compelling. I can get choked up just talking about it.”
Saldana added: “I was able to see just 20 minutes of the second instalment right before the year ended, last year [2021], and I was speechless. I was moved to tears.”
With statements like that, it’s understandable that movie fans are keen to feast their eyes on Avatar 2 footage themselves, with recent speculation claiming they’ll be able to do just that in the near future.
The Ankler reports that Disney is planning to debut the first Avatar 2 trailer before much-anticipated Marvel flick Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is due for UK release in May.
For more on what to expect from Avatar 2, read on for everything we know so far.
Avatar 2 release date (plus Avatar 3, 4 and 5)
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Avatar 2 has seen numerous delays over the last decade or so, most recently due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the latest release date it has landed on seems to be its most plausible yet.
Therefore, we’re saying with some confidence that movie-goers can expect to see Avatar 2 in cinemas on Friday 16th December 2022, roughly 13 years to the day since the release of the first film.
Filming on the sequels took such a long time because of the technological advancements required to tell the story and the logistical challenges of filming Avatar 2, 3 and 4 at the same time.
Following the latest shuffle of Warner Bros release dates, Avatar 2 will now be going up against Shazam! Fury of the Gods at the box office, with the director of the DC Comics sequel recently acknowledging his tough competition.
“Poor James Cameron must be shaking in his boots right now,” tweeted David F Sandberg in March 2022. Here’s hoping there’s enough room at the multiplex for both films to find an audience.
Once the first Avatar sequel is finally released, fans won’t have so long to wait for further adventures on Pandora, as Avatar 3 is slated for just two years later on 20th December 2024.
There will be another two years before the following entry, as Avatar 4 is currently due to arrive on 18th December 2026, while the fifth movie will launch on 22nd December 2028.
Of course, take this ambitious plan with a grain of salt; Avatar 2 was initially scheduled for release in 2014, so that gives you an idea of just how unreliable these official dates have been up until now.
However, it does bode well that much of the principal photography for the first trilogy is now complete, with Cameron offering an update to Dune director Denis Villeneuve as part of Variety’s Directors on Directors series.
“[Avatar] 2 is kind of fully in the can, we have a working cut that we’re filling in the visual effects and I feel pretty confident with that film,” he said.
“[Avatar] 3 is still a bit shadowy, it’s way too long and I haven’t really turned my energy into a disciplined cutting process on that yet, but I know I’ve got it. I know I’ve got the performances and that’s the important thing.”
He added: “I’ve done all the capture and I’ve done most of the live-action shooting. I still have a little bit on some of the adult characters because we were more concerned with the kids ageing out [of their roles].”
What will the Avatar films be called?
BBC News previously reported that it had “seen documentation” which revealed the titles for the four sequels as the following:
- Avatar: The Way of Water
- Avatar: The Seed Bearer
- Avatar: The Tulkun Rider
- Avatar: The Quest for Eywa
However, nothing has been officially confirmed just yet and, even if the documentation is accurate, the titles could very well change before release.
Avatar 2 cast – new and returning characters
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A key focus of the Avatar sequels will continue to be the characters of Jake Sully and Neytiri, played by Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana respectively, who reportedly will have started a family together in the sequel.
Interestingly, Cameron’s longtime collaborator Sigourney Weaver has stated she will also return for the next movie, but told The Jonathan Ross Show back in 2015 that she won’t be playing the same character.
That makes sense given that the fate of Dr Grace Augustine was left uncertain by the events of the first film, although it appears that death will be no major obstacle in this sci-fi saga.
Case in point: it has also been confirmed that Stephen Lang (Don’t Breathe) will be returning for the sequels as the villainous Colonel Miles Quaritch, who was killed after waging an immoral war against the Na’vi in the first film’s final act.
“I’m not going to say exactly how we’re bringing him back, but it’s a science fiction story, after all,” Cameron told Deadline in 2013. His character will evolve into really unexpected places across the arc of our new three-film saga.”
Other returning cast members include Giovanni Ribisi as corporate stooge Parker Selfridge, Matt Gerald as mercenary Lyle Wainfleet and CCH Pounder as Neytiri’s mother Mo’at, while Joel David Moore and Dileep Rao reprise their roles as Jake’s human allies Dr Norm Spellman and Dr Max Patel.
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In addition to reuniting much of his original cast, Cameron has also made some big-name additions to the Avatar universe, including a reunion with his Titanic star Kate Winslet.
The actor, who recently earned acclaim for her harrowing role on HBO’s Mare of Easttown, will play a free-diving Na’vi of the reef tribe Metkayina named Ronal.
Cliff Curtis (The Meg) plays Tonowari, the leader of the water-dwelling people, with relative newcomers Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo and Duane Evans Jr among the other members of the clan.
Nurse Jackie star Edie Falco will play a military commander working for the sinister Resources Development Administration (or RDA), while Brendan Cowell (Press) is a Pandora-based hunter working for the private sector.
Michelle Yeoh (Star Trek: Discovery) and Jemaine Clement (What We Do in the Shadows) have also joined the project as scientists Dr Karina Mogue and Dr Ian Garvin respectively.
It has also been confirmed that Oona Chaplin (Taboo), Vin Diesel (Fast & Furious) and CJ Jones (Baby Driver) will also be part of the Avatar saga, but little is known about their characters at this stage.
Behind the camera, Simon Franglen (Titanic) has been brought on board to score all the forthcoming Avatar sequels after the original composer, James Horner, passed away in 2015 (as explained by producer Jon Landau).
Avatar 2 story and plot
James Cameron has revealed only a few details about Avatar 2, the most important being that much of the story will take place underwater around a settlement by the Metkayina people.
“There’s a tremendous amount of water work across Avatar two and three,” Cameron told Collider. “It’s ongoing into four and five, but the emphasis is on two and three.”
More recently, Avatar 2 star Stephen Lang said that fans will be “enchanted and fascinated” by the upcoming films.
“Look, there are people who are going to just adore this world,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s just a beautifully imagined universe that Cameron has conceived of here.
“The partners we have, the people working by his [side], are committed to the vision of it and they bring so much to the table, from the actors to the caterers and everybody else. I’m looking forward to it as much as everyone else. It’s been so long in the making, so long a part of my life.
In May 2020, a teaser picture of the cast doing some motion-capture work in a 900,000 gallon water tank was released online, showing that Cameron wasn’t kidding about the scale of the work.
From the set of the sequels: @ZoeSaldana, Sam Worthington, Kate Winslet, and Cliff Curtis taking a break from underwater performance capture for a quick photo!
— Avatar (@officialavatar) May 13, 2020
Fun fact: Much of the performance capture took place in this 900,000 gallon tank, built specifically for the sequels. pic.twitter.com/NSfqoZ6jXJ
We also know that each sequel will be a standalone adventure, rather than another instalment in a serialised story.
“Each movie is a standalone movie that we would want to go see,” producer Jon Landau told Collider. “You don’t need to have seen the first Avatar to see Avatar 2. It sits there and we’re gonna take people on a visual and an emotional journey that comes to its own conclusion.”
Later, Landau also revealed that Avatar 2 is something of a family story.
“This is the story of the Sully family and what one does to keep their family together,” he said. “Jake and Neytiri have a family in this movie, they are forced to leave their home, they go out and explore the different regions of Pandora, including spending quite a bit of time on the water, around the water, in the water.”
According to GamesRadar, Jake and Neytiri will have three children in the Avatar sequels: Neteyam, Lo’ak and Tuktirey.
Everything else is up in the air, but we expect more details to come out as we inch closer to its December 2022 release date – check back here for more info as we have it.
Is there an Avatar 2 trailer?
An official trailer for Avatar 2 has not yet been officially released, but rumour has it that the first teaser will play before Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness – which is arriving in cinemas on Thursday 5th May. Not long to go!
Why was Avatar 2 delayed?
Like most films around the world, shooting on Avatar 2 was halted as the world locked down – but thanks to New Zealand’s powerful response to the coronavirus, production was able to restart relatively quickly.
“We feel very comfortable because of the actions of [the NZ] government and also the responsibility the people took to really curb the virus there,” producer Jon Landau told Radio New Zealand in May 2020.
“So we feel we’re coming back to the safest place in the world possible thanks to a team of people that we’ve worked with. We believe we have a very thoughtful, detailed and diligent safety plan that will keep everybody as safe as possible in these unprecedented times.”
From the New Zealand set of the Avatar sequels, we're grateful to be safely back in action. pic.twitter.com/t8xTsUVdM6
— Avatar (@officialavatar) June 22, 2020
Avatar 2 resumed shooting on Monday 15th June 2020 and finally wrapped that September, after a truly epic production cycle that has stretched far beyond what most fans had expected.
Before coronavirus became an issue, the sequels had already taken a long time to start filming, largely due to Cameron’s bold choice to work on three of them simultaneously.
That required all the scripts to be written and a huge amount of design work to be completed before cameras could start rolling, not to mention the substantial technological development required to make his underwater vision a reality.
“It was highly optimistic that we could start quickly until scripts are written,” the filmmaker told Vanity Fair in November 2017. “If there’s no scripts, there’s nothing, right?
“The scripts took four years. You can call that a delay, but it’s not really a delay because from the time we pushed the button to really go make the movies [until now], we’re clicking along perfectly.”
Avatar 2 first-look images
Arguably the most captivating thing about the first Avatar movie was its setting, the incredible and fully realised world of Pandora, where the Na’vi have lived peacefully for generations.
The official Twitter account promises you’ll see plenty more of it in the films to come, not just the familiar landmarks of the first entry, but all-new areas of the breathtaking planet.
In his episode of Variety’s Directors on Directors, Cameron explained: “Earth is not one ecosystem; it has desert, it has rainforest, it has ocean, polar, arboreal, forest and so on.
“So I said: ‘Well, I’m inspired by Earth. I’m going to do a planet that’s so rich and so complex, that has so many different ecosystems, I can just spend as much time here as I need to’.”
The concept art below shows off beautiful beaches, with ocean adventures said to feature heavily in the upcoming sequels, as one of the most challenging parts of production has been mastering underwater technology.
In the #Avatar sequels, you won’t just return to Pandora — you’ll explore new parts of the world.
— Avatar (@officialavatar) January 7, 2020
Check out these brand new concept art pieces for a sneak peek at what’s to come. pic.twitter.com/bfZPWVa7XZ
Avatar 2 filming techniques
Initially, the films were reportedly delayed because Cameron was intent on making them a technological marvel on the same scale as the original.
To do so, he turned to underwater CGI, which has never been done in any great measure beforehand, and meant a long spell of pre-production.
From the set of the Avatar sequels: Last year during underwater performance capture, still photographer Mark Fellman snapped this photo of @BritainDalton, who plays Lo'ak. pic.twitter.com/0pBt8wwAqa
— Avatar (@officialavatar) June 24, 2020
Cameron explained the main issues of this filming technique in an interview with Collider.
“The problem with water is not the underwater part, but the interface between the air and the water, which forms a moving mirror,” he said.
“That moving mirror reflects all the dots and markers, and it creates a bunch of false markers. It’s a little bit like a fighter plane dumping a bunch of chaff to confuse the radar system of a missile. It creates thousands of false targets, so we’ve had to figure out how to get around that problem, which we did.
“Basically, whenever you add water to any problem, it just gets ten times harder. So, we’ve thrown a lot of horsepower, innovation, imagination and new technology at the problem, and it’s taken us about a year and a half now to work out how we’re going to do it.”
How do the Avatar movies relate to The Last Airbender?
Well, they don’t relate at all – Avatar: The Last Airbender is an animated series from Nickelodeon that recently re-emerged in the popular consciousness due to new streaming deals on Netflix, and bears no relationship to James Cameron’s film series.
There is one connection between the two Avatars, however – when M Night Shyamalan turned the cartoon series into a critically-derided live-action movie, he was unable to use the “Avatar” title thanks to Cameron buying up the copyright, meaning he had to use the suffix “The Last Airbender” instead.
It’s unclear whether Netflix’s upcoming live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series will have similar issues, though with more of Cameron’s Avatar movies coming there could be more confusion ahead.
You can buy Avatar on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon, or stream on Disney Plus if you subscribe for £79.90 a year or £7.99 a month.
Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage, consult our list of the best movies on Disney Plus or visit our TV Guide to find out what’s on tonight.
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