Has Vin Diesel joined the cast of James Cameron’s Avatar sequels?

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Since the release of AVATAR close to a decade ago, James Cameron has been hard at work developing four sequels to the film. That's an awful lot of Pandora. The motion-capture portions for the first two sequels have already been completed and principal-photography on the live-action segments is due to kick off fairly soon, and it seems that there's a chance Vin Diesel may be joining the cast.

The actor posted a video on Instagram which found him on the set of the AVATAR sequels alongside James Cameron. "So here we are on the set of Avatar 2, 3, 4, and 5," Cameron said. "This is top secret, this is like The Manhattan Project. My buddy Vin [is here], and we’re actually going to give him the flashy thing from Men in Black after he leaves here so he has no memory whatsoever of what he’s seen because he cannot carry the tale… this is top secret shit." Diesel responded by saying, "It’s long overdue. There is one person in Hollywood I’ve always wanted to work with and learn from, and so all things come to those who wait." You can check out the video for yourself below.

Obviously this isn't exactly a confirmation that Vin Diesel will be a part of the AVATAR sequels, although it certainly seems to hint at it. James Cameron has said that the four AVATAR sequels will be a "generational family saga" which will be 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," Cameron said. "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." Even though the AVATAR franchise has been absent from the big-screen for some time, Sigourney Weaver, who will be returning as a new character across the four sequels, is confident that the new films will still manage to change the cinema experience.

I think that because the water becomes another world. The scripts are amazing, and in the first one, which I love, I think he hadn’t set up a lot of things. In this one he got to tell this very personal story. They’re amazing. There’s a message to not sacrifice everything for greed and conquest. It will take all four movies to really make that message loud and clear for the whole world.

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.