Avatar is a symbolic picture of 2009, the voyage to Pandora conquering those who until today consider it a breakthrough in terms of visuals – if not of fantasy – its box office record of more than $2 billion gross stands as unbeatable proof of its worldwide impact. The announcement of a sequel greatly thrilled admirers of the genre and so did the thought that the picture will release next year, as a perfect Christmas gift for 2016. Today, Variety confirmed the unfortunate news that Avatar 2 will be delayed for an entire year, thus planning to be released at the end of 2017.
James Cameron, the mind and soul behind the Avatar universe, informed that the sequel will be delayed due to impossibilities to reach script deadlines and so confirmed already existent rumors. The charm and the trick of Avatar sequels is that they are thought as a unity in terms of shooting, story and characters. James Cameron highlighted that he does not intend to release the first sequel and only after that to start shootings for the third part, but that his idea is to shoot all sequels simultaneously: ‘’We’re not just going to do one and then make up another one and another one after that.’’ Another argument to sustain the idea of the Avatar director is a more practical one, related to the actual creating process of both background and characters: ‘’And parallel with that, we’re doing all the design. So we’ve designed all the creatures and the environment.’’
Cameron decided to delay the release of Avatar 2 for 2017 and consequently, all the three upcoming movies will be pushed back one year from their initially established dates. Although the pictures are thought to be shot simultaneously, their airing is meant to surprise year after year for a total of three years.
Unfortunate news aside, James Cameron truly believes in his artistic projects – Avatar sequels – and in their intimate relation with the social and human state of nowadays: ‘’There’s nothing I need to say as an artist about the state of the world and human affairs that I can’t do through the lens of the Avatar universe’’. As for the script, although it is considered the main motive of the sequel’s delay, its consistency and details shape day by day, unstoppable and magical: ‘’We’ve had a couple of years to think through the story arc of the next three films, and every day that goes by, I believe in the stories I’m telling more and more. We’re not coming out of the block fast to capitalize on the last film.’’