Avatar: The Way of Water director James Cameron revealed that actors had to sport special jetpacks during the film's underwater scenes.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cameron explained that he didn't want to give his actors webbed feet to propel them through the water. The director revealed that they problem-solved this in an unconventional way, explaining, "We essentially gave them jet packs, and they were able to trigger the jetpacks themselves on the fly." He added, "So they'd complete a stroke, and when they're in the glide phase of the stroke, they'd trigger the jetpack with a little tiny switch and it would push them forward a couple of meters. They'd move their hips like they had a tail. We called it the crocodile swim."
This isn't the only way Avatar 2 promises to defy conventions. The film allegedly has a runtime that exceeds three hours, which Cameron said is necessary "because there’s more characters to service" than in the first film. The director noted that "the emphasis in the new film is more on character, more on story, more on relationships, more on emotion." He previously likened the film's familial structures to those seen on HBO's The Sopranos.
But despite Cameron seemingly being happy with how The Way of Water has transformed since the original, the film's road to success was a slightly rocky one. The director revealed he scrapped a 130-page early iteration of the script, recalling, "It also didn't play enough by Avatar rules, which is to connect us to the dream world, that which has a spiritual component that we can't even quite quantify in words."
More Avatar Films Aren't Guaranteed
Just like Cameron didn't want to force a sequel to Avatar that didn't feel right, he also doesn't want to force more films in the franchise without financial gain. "The market could be telling us we're done in three months," he explained, "or we might be semi-done," and close the franchise's door at three films instead of five.
Cameron added that "scripts are already written" for the fourth and fifth Avatar films, adding that "everything's designed. So just add water."
Avatar: The Way of Water hits the big screen on Dec. 16 in RealD 3D, Dolby Cinema, IMAX, and IMAX 3D.
Source: Entertainment Weekly