Avatar 2: Zoe Saldaña was moved to tears after watching footage

If James Cameron’s Avatar moved you to tears, then it’s a good bet that the upcoming sequel will as well. Zoe Saldaña, who plays Neytiri in the franchise, recently spoke with Kevin McCarthy and revealed that she’s seen twenty minutes of Avatar 2 and was quite moved by the experience.

I can get choked up just talking about it, because I was able to see just 20 minutes of the second installment, right before the year ended, last year. And I was speechless. I was moved to tears.

Zoe Saldaña also said that Avatar director James Cameron is also a “big crier” despite being a “very firm man who is very focused” on his craft. “But he does have a very delicate heart, which is why he protects it so much,” Saldaña said. “And I think that he’s able to have an outlet through the stories that he creates.” The Avatar sequels have certainly been a long time coming and Zoe Saldaña actually started on Avatar 2 almost five years ago, so finally getting to see footage from the project was clearly emotional.

Set 14 years after the events of the first film, Avatar 2 will find Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) having started a family, but when the Resources Development Administration (RDA) returns to Pandora, the family is forced to flee to the reef. Jake and Neytiri’s family includes Na’vi kids Neteyam (Jamie Flatter), Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), and Tuktirey (Trinity Bliss), but they also have Miles Socorro (Jack Champion). Also known as Spider, the young boy was born at the military base on Pandora but was too small to return to Earth so he’s been raised by Jake and Neytiri.

20th Century Studios president Steve Asbell was recently asked whether Avatar 2 would premiere in theaters this year — a valid question consider the sequel’s ever shifting release date — but without so much as a pause, Asbell said, “Yes. It will.” He added that the film is “going to blow people away” and that audiences are “not ready for what Jim [Cameron] is doing.” Avatar 2 will hit theaters on December 16, 2022, followed by Avatar 3 on December 20, 2023, Avatar 4 on December 18, 2026, and Avatar 5 on December 22, 2028. Zoe Saldaña can currently be seen starring alongside Ryan Reynolds in The Adam Project, which is now streaming on Netflix. You can check out a review from our own Gaius Bolling right here.