Director James Cameron reveals that filming has already begun on Avatar 4 -- and the second Avatar film hasn't even released yet.
New footage for 20th Century Studios' upcoming sequel Avatar: The Way of Water was shown during a presentation at D23 Expo, with Cameron on stage to talk about the franchise's future, labeling it as "a bit of an Odessy." According to ComicBook.com, not only did the director mention that filming is still underway for Avatar 3, but that production on Avatar 4 has officially begun.
Had the last few years gone differently, moviegoers would have already seen both Avatar: The Way of Water and Avatar 3 as of writing. The original timeline for the four sequels to 2009's Avatar was to have the second film release in Dec. 2020, the third in Dec. 2021 and the fourth in Dec. 2024. The fifth Avatar movie was originally slated for a 2025 release.
Avatar's Universe and the World of Pandora, Explained
The Way of Water was delayed for years, however, and will now release this year in Dec. 2022. The movie sees the return to Pandora and the Na'vi race, a tall humanoid species with blue skin and long tails. The original 2009 film dealt with the Na'vi fending off human soldiers who wished to destroy their homes and sacred lands to obtain a rare and valuable substance, with some human scientists developing "avatar" bodies of the Na'vi that one's consciousness could be temporarily placed into. The first Avatar ended with the human Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) helping the Na'vi defeat the other humans and having his mind permanently merged with his Avatar body to live out his life on Pandora.
The First Avatar Movie Was Extremely Successful
Avatar (2009) is still the highest grossing movie of all time, reclaiming that title in 2021 from Avengers: Endgame (2019) after the movie was re-released in theaters. How successful The Way of Water will be remains to be seen, though Cameron has previously compared the goal of the franchise to be similar to adapting The Lord of the Rings series, telling executives before signing on to make the sequels, "I'll do it, but we've got to play a larger game here. I don't want to do just a movie and do a movie and do a movie. I want to tell a bigger story," continuing, "Imagine a series of novels like The Lord of the Rings existed, and we're adapting them."
Avatar: The Way of Water releases in theaters on Dec. 16, 2022. The 4K restoration of the original Avatar will release in theaters on Sep. 23.
Source: ComicBook.com