In an interview held by Arnold Schwarzenegger with Director James Cameron, a piece of new information about the Avatar Sequel has been revealed. Cameron has confirmed that principal photography for Avatar 2 is finished, and Avatar 3 is 95% completed. Also, new BTS photos of the Sequel’s production have emerged. Read on.

Avatar Sequel

This Avatar sequel was announced in December 2009. Originally, James Cameron wanted to release it in 2015. However, after several delays, Cameron announced that the release would be in December 2020. In July 2020, the film was postponed even further due to COVID. For now, the final date is December 2022. Avatar 3 will be released in 2024. The DP is Russell Carpenter which is considered as Cameron’s cinematic partner. Anyway, the official Avatar Twitter has come back to life by revealing fascinating pictures from the productions which you can explore in this article. 

COVID hit us like it hit everybody. Hit us hard. We lost about four and a half months of production. As a result of that, we’ve rolled around one more full year for a release in December of 2022.

James Cameron

Principal photography is (almost) finished

According to Cameron, the Avatar 2 principal photography is finished, and Avatar 3 is 95% done in spite of COVID.  Cameron says that the production was being lucky to film in New Zealand and not somewhere else, because of its low COVID morbidity rates.

As stated by Camera in an interview held by Arnold Schwarzenegger: “COVID hit us like it hit everybody. Hit us hard. We lost about four and a half months of production. As a result of that, we’ve rolled around one more full year for a release in December of 2022. Now that doesn’t mean that I have an extra year to finish the film because the day we delivered Avatar 2 we start working on finishing Avatar 3. So We’re shooting the remainder of the live-action. We’ve got about 10 left to go. We’re 100 complete on Avatar 2 and we’re sort of 95 complete on Avatar 3. We’re very lucky that we chose this as our production site years ago. We made the first film here in New Zealand and it turns out to be one of the best-ranked countries in the world for its COVID response”. Listen to the whole interview below:

Shot on Sony CineAlta cameras

All the Avatars were shot on the Sony CineAlta cameras. The first Avatar movie, released in 2009 was shot on CineAlta F23. Avatar 2 and 3 were shot on the Sony VENICE and its unique extension module has been heavily utilized to get the body shots that Cameron wanted. Furthermore, for the upcoming Avatar sequels, multiple VENICE cameras were paired in various 3D stereoscopic rigs in very demanding environments.

That configuration allows a FPV 3D cinematic imagery that constitutes one of the main characteristics in the film. By the way, Cameron seriously looked into shooting the Avatar sequels in a higher frame rate (48fps and even 60fp) which, as he stated, takes the glass out of the window to reality. However (and luckily), Cameron opted out of this route, stating in an interview that as groundbreaking as the format is for cinema, moviegoers have always been used to a specific way to view films and altering that in any way would simply take the audience out of that experience.

We’re 100 complete on Avatar 2 and we’re sort of 95 complete on Avatar 3.

James Cameron

Sony VENICE IMAX

At this stage, it’s hard to tell if the Avatar sequel will have participated in the “Filmed In IMAX” program (like Dune and Top Gun: Maverick, which was also shot on the VENICE). Our guess is that the answer to that will be affirmative. The Avatar will be definitely delivered as a masterpiece to be screened on the IMAX 3D experience, and thus, programs like “Filmed In IMAX” were stitched for those kinds of projects.

We think that the Avatar sequels are one of the most awe-inspiring filmmaking projects, so stay tuned as we’ll do our best to keep you posted and connected to the Na’vi.