'Avatar' sequel: Here's the new projected release date

The next 'Avatar' film is now scheduled to be released in 2017, according to director James Cameron. Cameron cited the fact that multiple 'Avatar' films are being planned. 'There's a layer of complexity in getting the story to work as a saga across three films that you don't get when you're making a stand-alone film,' he said.

|
Reuters
'Avatar' stars Sam Worthington (l.) and Zoe Saldana (r.).

Director James Cameron said Wednesday that writing three "Avatar" sequels is such a complex job he's delaying the first new film a year and it will now be released in late 2017.

Cameron plans to film the highly-anticipated sequels at one time and then release the three films over consecutive years.

The first had been due in late 2016, but he said the writing process had proved to be "very involved" and that the initial target date was probably too ambitious.

"There's a layer of complexity in getting the story to work as a saga across three films that you don't get when you're making a stand-alone film," he said in Wellington, New Zealand, where he was helping promote the local film industry with other directors including Peter Jackson.

Cameron said the goal was to have the three scripts completed this month. He's leading the writing team.

"We're writing three simultaneously. And we've done that so that everything tracks throughout the three films. We're not just going to do one and then make up another one and another one after that," he said. "And parallel with that, we're doing all the design. So we've designed all the creatures and the environments."

Cameron said he thought it was important that each film linked forward to the next one in a satisfying way but also came to a resolution so that the audience wasn't left hanging.

Released in 2009, "Avatar" is the highest-grossing film in history, with a box office take of nearly $2.8 billion. It was named best drama at the Golden Globes and won Academy Awards for cinematography, visual effects, and art direction.

Cameron shot the original movie in New Zealand and is planning to shoot the sequels there.

Producer Jon Landau, who is working with Cameron on the movies, said the team is taking greater security precautions following the recent hack against Sony: "I will only say 'yes' but will not tell you how," he joked.

The films will be made by Lightstorm Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to 'Avatar' sequel: Here's the new projected release date
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2015/0114/Avatar-sequel-Here-s-the-new-projected-release-date
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe