We reported back in January that James Cameron is in fact bringing the Avatar story back to the silver screen with two planned sequels. There is some speculation that the majority of the film will take place in the ocean, but that’s still unconfirmed. What we do know though is that Cameron intends to release the films back-to-back, in 2014 and 2015. According to First Showing, he will shoot the two films simultaneously (think Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).
While I find what they did with Deathly Hallows to be a shameless cash grab, I feel that Cameron has a true purpose behind his trilogy arc. Sure, the original Avatar earned over 2 billion dollars but still, Cameron is no slack director. He admits that the first film, though technically astounding, was somewhat derivative in nature (shall we say Dances With Wolves on steroids), and he intends to take his audience in a very new direction with the sequels.
He also promises new motion technology that will surpass that which was used for the first film. We can expect this new technology to be used on returning cast members, those who survived and those who didn’t. I found this perplexing, but as Mr. Cameron once stated, “no one is truly dead in science fiction”.
No specific details in regards to casting have been released, but it would be safe to assume that Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana will return. I’m personally pretty excited for the sequels and at the earliest, a release date of 2014 should allow James Cameron to truly extend his dream to eager audiences.