The visually stunning fantasy film – Avatar – directed, co-produced, written and co-edited by James Cameron is returning with four sequels, the dates of which have been revealed.
The first sequel, Avatar 2 will open after three years on 18 December, 2020 followed by Avatar 3 on 17 December, 2021. After three years of break again, Avatar 4 will come out on 20 December, 2024 and the last part on 19 December, 2025.
The announcement was made on Avatar’s official page on Facebook with a picture of Cameron and his team. “Great to be working with the best team in the business! Avatar takes flight as we begin concurrent production on four sequels,” Cameron said in the post.
One cannot complain, for Avatar took 10 years to hit screens. Cameron and his team had to invent new moviemaking technology back then as the already available tech was not enough for the vision he had in mind for the film. Released in 2009, the film still tops the chart in the list of highest grossing movies worldwide with a box office collection of $2.78 billion. Next in line is Titanic, also by James Cameron.
In 2015, Avatar co-producer Jon Landau had said that the first sequel was scheduled to release on 25 December, 2017. The third and the fourth movies were set for 2018 and 2019 respectively. At CinemaCon a year ago, Cameron then announced that he would make four Avatar sequels and the first one would hit theatres in 2018, followed by the other three in 2020, 2022 and 2023. However, a month ago in March, he admitted that the 2018 date was no longer feasible.
There was also news of Avatar makers teaming up with HP for creating an immersive experience for the future releases of the epic saga.
Cameron and Landau will be producing the films through their Lightstorm Entertainment. Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, and Stephen Lang will reprise their roles for Avatar 2.
“So I know where I’m going to be for the next eight years of my life,” Cameron told Variety last month. “It’s not an unreasonable time frame if you think about it. It took us four-and-a-half years to make one movie and now we’re making four. We’re full tilt boogie right now. This is my day job and pretty soon we’ll be 24/7. We’re pretty well designed on all our creatures and sets. It’s pretty exciting stuff. I wish I could share with the world. But we have to preserve a certain amount of showmanship and we’re going to draw that curtain when the time is right.”
Illumination Entertainment’s Sing 2 is slated for release on 20 December, 2020, close to Avatar’s first sequel.