You’d have to cast your mind back to Christmas 2009 to remember the trailblazing success of Avatar.
Even now, almost 10 years later, James Cameron’s sci-fi oddity is perched atop the box office charts ($2.78 billion), having fended off the likes of Avengers: Infinity War ($2.04 billion) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($2.06 billion) in recent years.
So it’s small wonder that Cameron and the Powers That Be are keen to explore the lush world of Pandora even further – to the point that there are currently four Avatar sequels in active development. And though Avatars 4 and 5 largely hinge on the potential success (or lack thereof) of their immediate predecessors, Sigourney Weaver has confirmed via The Hollywood Reporter that Cameron and his team are already beginning to close out their epic sci-fi saga.
We almost started to do it when I was working with James Cameron. But by the time we were put off by Fox, Neill had gotten so many jobs that we’d have to wait probably. I’m busy doing Avatar 4 and 5. I love working with Neill and I think he’d do a terrific job, and James Cameron really thinks it’s a great idea, so you never know. Right now, I think Neill’s got like three projects going at once.
What’s so interesting about Weaver’s involvement is that her character of Grace was actually killed off in the original film 10 years ago, which tells us that James Cameron plans to rewrite history so that one of his frequent collaborators can return from beyond the grave. And it seems Grace’s role extends far into the 2020s, when Avatar 5 will put a big blue bow on this blockbuster saga.
Closer to home, Avatar 2 is expected to get the ball rolling on December 18th, 2020, by which point we should have a better understanding of what James Cameron has planned for the wild world of Pandora.
