'Avatar 2' Release Date: Sequels Finally Begin Filming With More Than $1 Billion Budget
After eight years of development plagued with tons of delays, filming for "Avatar 2" and the three follow-up movies in the franchise has officially begun.
According to Deadline, production kicked off at the Manhattan Beach in California and Cameron has over $1 billion budget to draw on in putting together the foursome, which the director plans to film in succession.
There is no word yet on when the production is slated to conclude, but it is expected to be a grueling process since the four "Avatar" installments will be filmed back to back. This is a first, trouncing Peter Jackson's feat having shot all three "The Lord of the Rings" movies together.
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There were a lot of factors that had to be settled before Cameron reached this point in his work on the "Avatar" quartet. The director opted to write the script for all four movies first and then set out to do the production one after the other so as to make sure the continuity and story lines up perfectly.
Also, the director wanted to use of an underwater motion-capture tech for epic visuals, which, in itself, took years to put together and have it function as it should.
Add to that bringing together the star-studded cast, which includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Joel David Moore, Stephen Lang, Matt Gerald and Sigourney Weaver along with newcomers Cliff Curtis and Oona Chaplin, who are basically locking the next few years of their lives for "Avatar."
Cameron is taking a big risk in getting everything done for the four films before even bringing "Avatar 2" to the cinema. However, all things considered, Forbes believes that the sequel alone is enough to turn over more than the budget for all of the installments.
When "Avatar 2" hits the cinemas in three years time, the franchise is imagined to be one of the biggest things in cinema since the likes of "Star Wars" trilogy and the current Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) phase should have concluded by that time.
"Avatar 2" will be out Dec. 18, 2020. The rest will be released Dec. 17, 2021, Dec. 20, 2024 and Dec. 19, 2025, respectively.
