Looks like Avatar 2 won’t be hitting that fabled December 2018 release date after all.
The Star recently caught up with franchise mastermind James Cameron, where the prestigious writer-director conceded that 2018 “is not happening.” To their credit, neither Cameron nor Fox never actually locked down release plans for the many, many Avatar follow-ups in development, and it was only a leaked report that claimed Avatar 2 was on course to swoop into theaters on December 21st of next year.
Pitched as a sprawling family saga with “amazing” scripts to boot, there’s a hushed excitement swirling around James Cameron’s bold plans for the future of Avatar – even if those sequels are spending a little more time in the oven than initially expected. Still, after ruling out that aforementioned 2018 due date, Cameron went on to tease the ways in which he’s viewing Avatars 2, 3, 4 and 5 as a single, “epic undertaking.”
“Well, 2018 is not happening. We haven’t announced a firm release date. What people have to understand is that this is a cadence of releases. So we’re not making Avatar 2. We’re making Avatar 2, 3, 4 and 5. It’s an epic undertaking. It’s not unlike building the Three Gorges dam. (Laughs) So I know where I’m going to be for the next eight years of my life. It’s not an unreasonable time frame if you think about it. It took us four-and-a-half years to make one movie and now we’re making four. We’re full tilt boogie right now. This is my day job and pretty soon we’ll be 24-7. We’re pretty well designed on all our creatures and sets. It’s pretty exciting stuff. I wish I could share with the world. But we have to preserve a certain amount of showmanship and we’re going to draw that curtain when the time is right.”
Once slated for December 21st, 2018, Avatar 2 will likely be nudged into 2019. If nothing else, fans can take solace in the fact that Cameron is crafting the sequels as though they were a single entity, meaning that once the first Avatar follow-up finally tumbles off the production line, it shouldn’t be too much longer before Avatars 3, 4 and 5 follow in quick succession.
