If you’reJames Cameron, you take a breath and then dive headfirst into the deep endliterally.
“It sounds kind of nuts, the process,” Cameron, 67, admits with a laugh.
Listening to the filmmaker describeAvatar2’s journey makes “kind of crazy” sound like an understatement.
“I do the ocean thing when I’m not making movies,” he says.
But setting a story below sea level presents more than a few challenges.
That footage was then animated by artists at the multi-Oscar-winning visual-effects company Weta Digital.
“I said, ‘It’s not going to work.
It’s not going to look real.’
And it wasn’t even close.”
But Cameron and Landau say their goal for the sequels was to aim higherand dive deeper.
The fourth and fifth movies are currently set for 2026 and 2028.
“That’s both exciting and challenging.
“The big issue is: Are we going to make any damn money?”
Cameron says of his planned sequels.
“Big, expensive films have got to make a lot of money.
We’re in a new world post-COVID, post-streaming.
Maybe those [box office] numbers will never be seen again.
It’s all a big roll of the dice.”
For more from our 2022 preview,order the January issueofEntertainment Weeklyor find it on newsstands beginning Friday.
