Disney gave James Cameron one note after they read the “nuts” script for Avatar 4: “Holy f*ck.”
The 13-year wait for an Avatar sequel is nearly over. Next week, Avatar 2, titled The Way of Water, will hit the biggest screens across the world, destined for a spot on the list of the highest-grossing movies of all time.
While it’s taken more than a decade to get here, Cameron isn’t stopping with just one sequel – he has three more planned, with the possibility of Avatar 6 and 7 if people want them.
Avatar 3 is set to hit cinemas next year, and if they’re successful enough, we’ll get the fourth and fifth – according to James Cameron, the later movies go pretty “nuts.”
Avatar 4 made Disney go “holy f*ck”
In an interview with Collider, James Cameron spoke about the process of writing all of the Avatar sequels and filming several of them at the same time, as well as Disney’s reaction to reading the fourth movie’s script.
“I can’t tell you the details, but all I can say is that when I turned in the script for two, the studio gave me three pages of notes,” he explained.
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“And when I turned in the script for three, they gave me a page of notes, so I was getting better. When I turned in the script for Avatar 4, the studio executive, creative executive over the films wrote me an email that said, ‘Holy fuck.’
“And I said, ‘Well, where are the notes?’ And she said, ‘Those are the notes.’ Because it kind of goes nuts in a good way, right? You think you know what it’s about, and then, oh no, you don’t… I hope I get to make that film, is what I’m saying.”
Cameron compared his approach to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. “I had to play this as if the books already existed,” he said.
“So the only way for us to do that was to write all the scripts and let the actors read all the scripts and see where their characters were going and what it all meant. Not that that’s actable in the moment, but I think it’s something that the actors could work into their preparation for their characters.”
Avatar: The Way of Water hits cinemas on December 16. You can find out more about the movie here, and the best way to watch Avatar 2 here.