Hollywood productions are all on hold in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and one of the more high-profile shutdowns was James Cameron's AVATAR 2. The sequel has already seen its share of self-imposed delays due to Cameron and his team wanting to get everything just right and with ambitions to turn this into a five-movie franchise, a lot of hard work is being done to make sure that the first sequel can still see its December 2021 release, despite the pause in production due to the coronavirus.
In a recent interview via "Empire", Cameron addressed the filming delay that the production suffered in New Zeland and he says everything that can currently be done is taking place to make sure that AVATAR 2 can make its planned release date:
"There's a very good chance that our shoot might be delayed a couple of months, but we can still do it. So that's good news… We've got everybody, everybody at Weta Digital and Lightstorm, working from home to the extent that that is possible. But my work is on the stage doing the virtual cameras and so on, so I can do a bit of editing, but it's not great for me."
The positive news is that New Zealand has handled the situation incredibly well and recently revealed that productions will be able to resume in the country soon. I'm guessing productions around the world will look to the work that resumes first to see the best way to get things back up and running and New Zealand could prove to be a very important template. California, for instance, hasn't announced when productions can restart but they did acknowledge that teams have been assembled to start the transition. The DGA has also formed a committee to begin discussing safety practices to make sure everyone feels safe going back to work on set. New Zealand is ahead of the game, which bodes well for production on AVATAR 2 restarting sooner rather than later.
As of now, AVATAR 2 is set to hit screens on December 17, 2021, and the subsequent sequels are dated through December 2027. The first film was released in 2009 and became the highest-grossing film at the worldwide box office until AVENGERS: ENDGAME dethroned the film last year. I keep questioning how much interest there will be in the AVATAR sequels once they're finally released but Cameron is all about touting the groundbreaking technology used to bring the films to life and perhaps that will be a big enough hook to make moviegoers interested again.
Do YOU think AVATAR 2 will remain on schedule?