Avatar 2: What We Know So Far

Originally set for release back in 2015, Avatar: The Way of Water has suffered one delay after another in the years following. Situations that led to this extended wait would involve the surprise addition of the fifth installment in 2016, the Disney/Fox merger in 2017, and, of course, the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2020. Luckily, it was in September of that year when James Cameron confirmed that principal photography had wrapped on Avatar 2 and that the third installment was also almost finished. By then, the film had been set for its current theatrical release on December 16, 2022.

James Cameron Returns To Direct Avatar: The Way Of Water

The first Avatar was truly a passion project for James Cameron, as the filmmaker spent years and years developing both the script and the technological advancements that it needed to be made. So, you didn't really expect him to hand off the sequels to someone else, did you? Cameron has come back for not just Avatar: The Way of Water, but for the third, fourth, and fifth installments as well.

He has some big plans for the technological side of things, and has talked about both filming at higher frame rates and using performance capture underwater. You can be sure that the sequel will push the boundaries of what can be accomplished in modern filmmaking. Cameron wants to show that the first film's success was not a fluke, and the director is certainly not expecting success to come automatically to the Avatar sequels simply because the first one did well.

James Cameron Co-Wrote Avatar 2 With Josh Friedman

James Cameron was the lone credited screenwriter on the first Avatar movie, but for the four sequels he has brought in a full team of collaborators who have helped him break down all upcoming chapters of the franchise. Josh Friedman, who penned Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds remake with David Koepp and developed Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for television, was the first one to sign on and is credited as the co-screenwriter for Avatar: The Way of Water.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes veterans Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver and Armageddon's Shane Salernowill also be working side-by-side with Cameron on further sequels, which will introduce "whole new worlds, habitats, and cultures." This very well could mean that we will get to meet some new kinds of intelligent alien species.

While the Avatar sequels were written as one large, ever expanding beast, and are being largely filmed together, we're being told that each of the upcoming movies are being created as standalone films, rather than being four parts of a larger story. While speaking about Toruk, the Cirque du Soleil Avatar prequel, Cameron spilled the beans on a major theme for the planned films: family: