Thursday, 4 August 2011

AVATAR SEQUEL GOES GREEN






James Cameron has confirmed that he will be dusting off his directors chair and he starts work on the screenplays for two more currently unnamed Avatar movies, which will be released in quick succession in 2014 and 2015. It has been suggested that the sequels will take place several years after the events of the 2009 smash hit.

The second and third films will serve to compliment their predecessor and fulfill an overall story arc that will become the director’s first film trilogy.
Actors Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana have confirmed they will be reprising their starring roles as Jake and Neytiri respectively. Worthington told Total Film “I think I’ll be 94 by the time it finishes, to be honest. I know Jim’s got some ideas in his big head.” Further casting is at this stage only rumoured, yet it looks like most surviving characters from the first film will be seen again, in some respect at least.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly at the Producers Guild awards in LA, Cameron revealed that some of the proceeds from these two films will be donated to environmental causes. He told one reporter: “I didn’t want to make more Avatar movies without a greater plan in place”. Fox has partnered with Cameron on this green mission to give back to charitable organisations and causes that are “the heart of the Avatar world”, focusing on the moral messages within the film series. With the first film grossing over two billion dollars at the worldwide box office, the decision to give back will surely stand in good stead with the public.

It is rumoured that Cameron plans to shoot a large part of ‘Avatar 2’ seven miles underwater in one of the deepest locations on earth: the Challenger Deep. He told the LA Times: “Part of my focus in the second film is in creating a different environment…and I’m going to be focusing on the ocean.”
The world-renowned director suggests his reasons for reviving the story may be down to practicality: “It just makes sense to think of it as a two or three film arc, in terms of the business plan.” He continues; “The CG plants and trees and creatures and the musculo-skeletal rigging of the main characters- that all takes an enormous amount of time to create. It’d be a waste not to use it again.”

However, fans can be assured that the new films will not just be a regurgitation of the original story, more a continuation of its filmic achievements. It appears the second film will explore the Na’vi culture in more detail in a slightly different setting. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Cameron promised an expansion on the dynamic visual innovation of the former: “ We will not back off the throttle of Avatar’s visual and emotional horsepower, and will continue to explore it’s themes and characters which touched the hearts of audiences in all cultures around the world.” Scheduled to shoot at the one of the most hi-tech production studios in America; the Mbs Media campus in Manhattan Beach, which is pegged as the most technologically advanced outside of Hollywood, it seems admirers of the first film’s visual effects and aesthetic beauty will certainly not be disappointed.

On the re-vivification of this exceptional world, Cameron express his excitement at the birth of a global franchise, telling THR: I’m looking forward to returning to Pandora; a world where our imaginations can run wild.”


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