It’s one thing for an announcement to go out in the trades that the “Avatar” sequels are actually being filmed (with a price-tag of $1 billion, no less). But we weren’t sure if we actually believed it: these things have been talked about for so long, and delayed so often, that we felt like we needed to see some actual Na’vi in front of us before we were convinced that James Cameron was actually behind the camera again.
Well, we don’t quite have that, but Entertainment Weekly have the next best thing: a look at the new cast of what is apparently officially being called “The Avatar Sequels.” And from the looks of it, Cameron’s cannily surfing the wave of the current “Stranger Things”/“It” trend of massively successful genre properties with kid leads.
Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana are nowhere to be seen here, with the site revealing that the sequels will in large part focus on their children, as well as those from another ocean-dwelling clan called the Metkayina, who are lead by a Na’vi called Tonowari (played by Cliff Curtis), not pictured. All of the actors (who are mostly unnamed by EW) will be playing motion-captured Na’vi characters, with one exception — Javier “Spider” Socorro (played by actor Jack Champion, in the brown boots and green t-shirt in the photo), a teenager who was born on the military base featured in the first movie. Do we have a new villain, perchance?…
Producer Jon Landau tells the site that the young cast should bring something different. “We never had this youthful element before, and that brings a different kind of energy to the film. They represent the future generation of Pandora and play a very significant role — not just in this movie but throughout all the movies.”
Elsewhere, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Cameron has clarified that the four “Avatar” sequels aren’t all being shot in one block, which helps to explain why there’s a three-year gap between the third and fourth films. “‘Avatar 2 and 3’ will be captured together and then [go through postproduction] sequentially. Then we go back and capture 4 and 5. They’re all written and they’re all designed, so we literally hit the ground running the day after ‘Avatar 3’ comes out, starting capture on 4 and 5 and then post on those and release those. That’s the plan. So, it’s kind of a two-and-two structure.”
You’ll be able to see how that works out, and see these young stars in action, when “Avatar 2” hits theaters on December 18th, 2020.
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