James Cameron to Shoot All 4 'Avatar' Movies Concurrently
James Cameron at CinemaCon 2016 in Las Vegas. (Photo: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
James Cameron followed up his recent CinemaCon announcement that he plans to make four more Avatar movies by sharing details about how he intends to crank out all these long-gestating sequels to one of the most profitable movies of all time.
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In a chat with Famous Monsters of Filmland, Cameron says he plans to go into production on all four of the new Na’vi films at the same time. “It’s more the way you would shoot a miniseries,” he tells the publication. “So we’ll be shooting across all [Avatar scripts] simultaneously. So Monday I might be doing a scene from Movie 4, and Tuesday I’m doing a scene from Movie 1. … We’re working across, essentially, eight hours of story.”
Kinda makes Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy sound like a cakewalk, doesn’t it? Actually, Cameron references another film series as an analogy to what he’s attempting: “It’s like doing all three Godfather films at the same time.”
You can say this for James Cameron: Dude always aims for the highest possible fence. Another thing you can say about James Cameron is that he’s very practical.
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In the Famous Monsters piece he also explains that the release dates for the upcoming Avatar films had to be spread out — they are expected in 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2023 — to avoid competing with the various Star Wars movies and spin-offs, whose release dates have been mapped out practically into the next century.
“That’s just good business,” the Titanic Oscar winner says. “I don’t want to go head-to-head with Star Wars. That would be stupid.”
True, Mr. Cameron. And that brings things to a close on this edition of Things James Cameron Has to Say About Avatar. We’ll see you next time, which, if news about Avatar continues to disseminate the way it has in the past week, may be very soon.
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