‘Avatar 2’ Took 5 Years to Make and Is ‘5 to 10 Times’ More ‘Nuanced’ Than the First Movie
Avatar: The Way of Water (aka Avatar 2) has finally arrived in theaters. The story of Avatar takes place in the alien world of Pandora, which is inhabited by blue aliens called Na’vi. The first movie came out way back in 2009. While the sequel has been in the works for some time, director James Cameron says it’s worth it.
‘Avatar 2’ was a long time coming
More than a decade since the release of the original Avatar, the sequel is finally set to hit theaters this December. According to director James Cameron, the Avatar movies are technically on time, despite the extended wait. In fact, he argued that the timing of the sequels is perfect.
“People don’t really understand the scope and complexity of the process. It’s like making two-and-a-half big animated films. A typical big animated film takes about four years. So, if you do the math on that, we’re kind of right on schedule,” Cameron previously said in an interview with Variety.
The official title, Avatar: The Way of Water, was announced at CinemaCon 2022, and it fits with the fantastic underwater sequences that Cameron has been teasing. The director wanted to improve the underwater motion-capture technology, which is why the sequel’s production took so long.
The sequel is more nuanced than the first movie
Avatar was beloved for its visuals. The stunning film raked in so much money at the box office, it became the highest-grossing film for many years, until Avengers: Endgame (briefly) dethroned it. However, the plot left a little to be desired in some people’s eyes. But Cameron says that this time around, the focus on Jake and Neytiri (and their family) will bring more depth.
“The new film is much, much more nuanced in terms of performance, much more complex emotionally than the first film by a country mile,” he told GQ. “The number of emotional scenes, big close-ups, that sort of thing that we have in the new film is probably five to 10 times what we had in the first film.”
According to Rotten Tomatoes, Avatar: The Way of Water picks up the story of the Sully family more than a decade after the first film’s events. It details the lengths they go to keep each other safe, their fights to stay alive, and the tragedies they experience. Overall, the sequel promises to be just as visually striking as the first film while providing a more enthralling narrative.
The ‘Avatar’ sequels will all be standalone stories
Of course, that’s not all. When it comes to Cameron, the task at hand is always a massive undertaking. In addition to Avatar 2, there are three more sequels in the works. “I knew I was embarking on a multi-year, really a kind of decadal project,” he told GQ.
“It was a year and a half to generate three scripts, and then six months for me to realize that the first script needed to be two movies,” Cameron detailed. “And then 18 months for me to go back and redraft and personally write all four of the shooting scripts. Including the split of the first sequel. So we started production literally five years ago.”
According to Comicbook.com, producer Jon Landau announced at CinemaCon 2022 that each Avatar sequel would have its own storyline. He noted, though, that by the time all the Avatar movies were released, the plot lines would have been integrated to create a magnificent story.
Fans have speculated that Avatar: The Way of Water’s box office success could rival or even surpass that of the first film. While only time will tell, there’s no denying the sequel sounds undeniably exciting.
