James Cameron, filmmaker extraordinaire, has officially announced the release date for Avatar 2, the sequel to the 2009 movie Avatar. Avatar 2 is slated for release Christmas 2017, as the first in a trilogy of upcoming films.
Once ready, James Cameron is insistent on releasing the three Avatar films one year apart. While speaking with the Montreal Gazette, he said: “Christmas of ’17 is the target… At least, that’s what we’ve announced. But I don’t consider that to be as important as the fact that when we get all three films done, we drop them a year apart. I call it a meta-narrative that runs across the three movies. Each film stands alone, but it also tells one much larger story.”
It seems that Cameron wants the three subsequent stories to be slightly annualized even if it means we’ll be waiting to see the sequel a total of eight years after the first one. Being the number one highest grossing film worldwide, the original Avatar took nearly 14 years to create, so having to wait another two years doesn’t appear unfair. James Cameron has confirmed that the writing for Avatar 2 is nearly completed, while the design, creatures, and the world are already done. Considering the surely immersive scope, this is an incredible feat to have finished. To this effect, Cameron has said: “We have design more or less finished, which is an enormous task. It’s been about a two-year task. (We’ve finished) all the creatures and the landscapes, and the new worlds within the world of Pandora that you see.”
It has been confirmed that both Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and Dr. Grace Augustine (what’s a sci-fi film without Sigourney Weaver?) will be back for Avatar 2. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) will also be returning onscreen.