Despite earning over $2.7 billion at the box office to reign as the highest-grossing movie ever made until Avengers: Endgame came along, Avatar gets a pretty bad rap these days. James Cameron’s blockbuster appears to have gone down the Forrest Gump route of being rapturously received at the time, before public opinion gets gradually lower and lower with each passing year.
Most of the criticisms are directed at the plot, and while you could make the argument that none of Cameron’s movies are particularly groundbreaking from a narrative perspective, that isn’t what made him one of the most important filmmakers of the modern era. The director has been pushing technological boundaries for over 30 years, and in terms of the sheer cinematic experience, there are few things capable of matching the immersive quality of visiting Pandora in full 3D on the big screen.
Having been delayed seven times already, Avatar 2 is currently scheduled for release in December 2022, and finally wrapped shooting a couple of months ago. Of course, the Terminator creator is making three of them almost back to back, so production will continue on for some time yet. To celebrate the last day of filming in 2020, though, Cameron revealed a couple of new images from the set, which you can check out below.
You can’t fault his commitment to the mythology, with the director set to spend the majority of his remaining career on the Avatar franchise based on the fact that at least thirteen years will have passed between the first and second installments. And having lost his crown to Endgame, you can guarantee that he’ll be desperate to reclaim his status as the man responsible for cinema’s biggest ever hit for what would be an incredible and unprecedented third time.
Published: Dec 16, 2020 08:27 am