In between taking a little jab at the Marvel Cinematic Universe, James Cameron is hard at work crafting enough AVATAR sequels to keep us going for the next few years, and during a press-event to promote his upcoming AMC documentary series, AMC Visionaries: James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction, the director revealed that his AVATAR epic will take a few notes from THE GODFATHER series.
It’s a generational family saga. It’s very different from the first film. In terms of the storytelling, I found myself — not for any reasons of the zeitgeist or what was popular — but I found myself, as a father of five, starting to think about, ‘What would an “Avatar” story be like if it was a family drama? If it was “The Godfather?”’ Obviously, a very different genre, very different story, but I got intrigued by that idea… What happens when warriors that are willing to go on suicide charges and leap off cliffs on to the back of big orange toruks — what happens when they grow up and have their own kids?. It becomes a very different story. Now the kids are the risk-takers and the change-makers.
There's still the possibility that James Cameron may not get the chance to tell the entirety of his AVATAR saga; although all four sequels have been given the go-ahead, whether the fourth and fifth films get made will of course be dependent on how well the second and third films perform. The first AVATAR still stands tall as the highest-grossing film in the world, but that was nearly ten years ago and I'm not convinced that audiences are as invested in the world of Pandora as they once were. I suppose the box-office will let us know. "We know the story through the end of 5, where it’s all going, but there’s no activity on 4 and 5 right now other than we’ve done most of the design work," Cameron added. "We know what the characters and the creatures and the places and so on look like, but we don’t have any active teams building models and that sort of thing right now. Wait until we get through the first phase of production cycle." Despite his track record, Cameron admits that even he isn't sure whether the new direction of the AVATAR sequels will be successful.
This could be the seeds of utter damnation and doom for the project, or it could be the thing that makes it stand apart and continue to be unique. Nobody knows ’till you make the movie and put it out. And anybody that thinks that this stuff is easy or it’s a foregone conclusion or we’re just printing money over here in ‘Avatar’ studio, it doesn’t work that way.
AVATAR 2 is slated for a December 18, 2020 release, with the sequels potentially following on December 17, 2021, December 20, 2024, and December 19, 2025. James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction will debut on AMC on April 30th.