Avatar 2: James Cameron hints at more 'real-world' moments in sequel

The James Cameron-directed Avatar was released in 2009 and ever since fans have been waiting for a sequel. Recently, the director announced that he was working on not one but four movies in the science fiction thriller franchise. He added that Avatar 2 would premiere in December 2018.

While speaking to the Famous Monsters of Filmland, the Academy award winning director revealed that is looking at releasing the fifth film in the series in 2023 and that he was concurrently shooting all the sequels together.

"It's [filming] not back-to-back. It's really all one big production. It's more the way you would shoot a miniseries. So we'll be shooting across all [Avatar scripts] simultaneously," he told the website.

"So Monday I might be doing a scene from Movie Four, and Tuesday I'm doing a scene from Movie One. ... We're working across, essentially, eight hours of story. It's going to be a big challenge to keep it all fixed in our minds, exactly where we are, across that story arc at any given point. It's going to be probably the most challenging thing I've ever done. I'm sure the actors will be challenged by that as well. It's like, 'No, no, no, no, this person hasn't died yet, so you're still in this phase of your life'. It's a saga. It's like doing all three Godfather films at the same time," he added.

The first movie of the blockbuster franchise achieved a milestone in visual effects while narrating the story of a tribe on the fictional planet of Pandora. However, Cameron has hinted that the sequels will have more "real-world" moments.

"On the new Avatar films, I'm actually going to shoot more real-world stuff. It may only be there as an example from which we then generate CG, or we may actually integrate some of those photographic elements. But I want more photography. ... Like, if I was doing the Alien Queen, I would want photography to show the exact way that the slime drools off the curl of a lip and caught the light in a certain type of very low-key lighting. I would want to see that so that I can talk to the CG artist and say, 'All right. Do that.' ... It always usually boils down to the lighting and the conception of the shot," he said.