Last week at CinemaCon James Cameron announced that the plan for the Avatar franchise was for it to have four sequels, set to be
released in the Christmas of 2018, the Christmas of 2020, the Christmas of
2022, and Christmas of 2023.
Well, the ambitious plan for the franchise just became
a lot more complicated as Cameron explains to Famous Monsters of Filmland that we
will not be filming one movie after the other like most of us assumed, no,
instead the filmmaker has opted to film all of the four movies at the same
time.
"It’s 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. 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."
Cameron also touched on the CGI, and revealed that he
will "shoot more real-world stuff" that may or may not
end up being recreated in the computer later on.
"If I could do the Alien Queen today with the
techniques we used on AVATAR, she’d be spectacular. She’d be much more dynamic.
Now, where I would struggle is to make her as texturally real. But that’s all
doable now. … 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."
Finally, Cameron addressed the release schedule, which
will put the Avatar sequels in direct competition with Star Wars.
"My original plan was to release them a year
apart, but we’re opening that up. If for no other reason than that I don’t want
to land on the same date as one of the STAR WARS sequels. That wouldn’t be fair
to them. [Laughs] No, that’s just good business. I don’t want to go
head-to-head with STAR WARS. That would be stupid. And hopefully they won’t
want to go head to head with us."
It will be interesting to see if Cameron and 20th
Century Fox's gamble will payoff, or if filming four big-budget movies at the
same time will backfire.
Source - Famous Monsters of Filmland
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