It’s an honest to God marvel that the most profitable film in human history had to wait over a decade to receive a sequel, but then again, that’s what you can expect from a director who’s more interested in pushing the boundaries of his craft than making money, which he’s got boat loads of anyway. Of course, it’s just our luck that, as soon as production on Avatar 2 finally got underway, it was just as quickly shut down by a once-in-a-lifetime global health crisis.
But, coronavirus or not, Avatar 2 isn’t going anywhere, and its producer, Jon Landau, just disclosed some exciting new details about the project. In a recent interview with RNZ, Cameron’s long-time business partner opened up about the challenges his production has faced so far, and when he’s expecting to return to New Zealand to resume shooting.
“We feel very comfortable because of the actions of your government and also the responsibility the people took to really curb the virus there. So we feel we’re coming back to the safest place in the world possible thanks to a team of people that we’ve worked with. We believe we have a very thoughtful, detailed and diligent safety plan that will keep everybody as safe as possible in these unprecedented times.”
While much appreciated, these little bits about safety precautions – which Landau, as an executive producer, is obligated to offer to any press person he speaks to these days – are just an appetizer for the film’s plot, of which he was able to say the following:
“This is the story of the Sully family and what one does to keep their family together. Jake and Neytiri have a family in this movie, they are forced to leave their home, they go out and explore the different regions of Pandora, including spending quite a bit of time on the water, around the water, in the water.”
Even though the first part of his explanation may sound like the setup of an alien sitcom rather than the next segment of one of the most action-packed, heart-stopping thrill rides cinema has ever seen, it does spell out the kind of conflicts one would expect to find in the latest chapter of Jake Sully’s story.
Having saved Pandora and embraced his alien body, the former marine is now faced with the daunting task of building a life for himself. Given that Landau refers to the main cast of characters as a “family,” it seems that Jake and Neytiri will have a child. For some reason, parenting seems to have become a popular trope in blockbusters over the years, with films and games alike re-imagining the hardened, solitary heroes of the early 2000s as softened fathers. Whether Jake will follow a similar trajectory in Avatar 2, however, remains to be seen.