Hello, the planet is Pandora. There must be some surprises James Camerons cinematic box that can make viewers uneasy, right?
At least that’s what the director was thinking when he finished post-production on “Avatar: Fire and Ashes,” the third part of his space saga about ruthless capitalists displacing the native Na’vi in their rapacious pursuit of Unobtanium.
In a new interview with Empirenoted Cameron that he’s well ahead of where the first sequel, “The Way of Water,” was in the lead-up to its 2022 release. The footage was mostly shot over five years ago, with only a year-long VFX and post-production process in its wake.
“It’s in strong shape, I think,” he told the British outlet. “We’ve doubled the number of completed frames at this stage of the game than we had on movie two (and) the movies are about the same length. So that puts us way ahead of the curve, which is something I’ve never, honestly, experienced before.” Laughing, he added that the process is “a little less nightmarish. We’re getting to a point where we’re actually getting good at this.”
“Yeah, we’ve got some really smart action games,” Cameron said. “You can get your blood pumping in this movie. But what excites me as an artist who recently turned 70 and has done all that is not just the opportunity to do it again, but to get to a level of character and intrigue like you haven’t seen before in an ‘ Avatar movie.”
It sounds like the position of an artist who really isn’t interested in just delivering more of the same. But as we know from other franchise films that tried to subvert their mythos a bit, or at least deliver some narrative twists, like “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” did, sometimes fans don’t want bold twists.
“We just started riffing on it and twisting it and flipping it,” says Cameron, about where this third installment fits into the overall five-film saga he has planned. “It’s a tricky thing. We can get high on our own supply here, and everybody looking at it says, ‘Damn, that’s not what I signed up for.’ But if you don’t make brave choices, you’re wasting everyone’s time and money. That alone isn’t enough to create success, but it’s necessary to break the mold every time.”
For our part, we’re just disappointed that “Avatar 3” is no longer called “Avatar: The Seed Bearer” as it was rumored several years ago.
