Since its theatre release, the long-awaited Avatar: The Way of Water has blown up, with critics and audiences alike absolutely loving it. The film has done so well that it’s been named one of the top ten films of 2022 by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review. The second film follows the story of Jake Sully once again. This time he has a family, and together they explore the oceans of Pandora and meet the Metkavina clan. When filming began, the production team was focused on more than one movie, filming scenes for Avatar 3 and Avatar 4.
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Let’s look at the Avatar franchise’s future (Avatar 3 and Avatar 4) and what James Cameron has done to keep its success.
Films Shot Back-to-Back
Before the release of Avatar in 2009, James Cameron said that if the film was a success, he wanted to film several sequels that focus on the planet of Pandora. Fortunately for him, the sequels (Avatar 2, Avatar 3 and Avatar 4) were announced a couple of years after the first film was released, with four more to follow.
While filming was delayed several times as new technology was developed to film underwater scenes, it eventually began in 2017. Still, there was a lot more being filmed than just Avatar: The Way of Water. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cameron spoke about how several scenes for Avatar 3 and Avatar 4 had already been filmed.
The second film brought on the now 13-year-old Trinity Jo-Li Bliss and 18-year-old Jack Champion as Tuk and Spider, respectively. Because Champion was “growing like a week”, Cameron had the second, third and first acts of the fourth movie filmed alongside the second film. He said that this was done because, “Otherwise, you get – and I love Stranger Things – but you get the Stranger Things effect, where they’re supposed to still be in high school (but) they look like they’re 27. You know, I love the show. It’s okay; we’ll suspend disbelief. We like the characters. But, you know.”
Unfortunately, the age problem isn’t completely avoidable, as there are still some scenes in Avatar: The Way of Water where Spider looks significantly younger than he does in others.
What Can We Look Forward to From The Next Film?
In the same interview with Entertainment Weekly, Jon Landau, one of the producers of the film, spoke a little bit about what fans will see in the next few movies, such as new biomes:
“Each movie is going to introduce audiences to new clans, new cultures on Pandora. Once we introduce a character, they stay a part of the ongoing evolution. We just add to it. So you can expect to see the MetKayina that you meet in this movie in subsequent movies. There are other clans that we’ll introduce in movie 3 that you’ll see in movie 4, and so on and so forth.”
There’s a lot of planning going into Avatar 3 and Avatar 4. Fans of Jake and the planet of Pandora hope everything works out as planned and that the next three films are just as good as the first two.
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