Now, in the days leading up to the debut of the franchise’s second installment, Cameron has revealed that the script of the fourth installment elicited the response “Holy f**k” from one of Disney’s executives. The director made this revelation during a recent interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, where he also discussed his writing process and producing The Way of Water.
During the interview, the 68-year-old actor revealed that the studio gave him three pages of notes when he submitted the script for the first sequel Avatar: The Way of Water. For the next sequel, Avatar 3, he got one page of notes. However, when he turned in the script for Avatar 4, all he got was “Holy fk.” In his words, " When I turned in the script for 4, the studio executive, creative executive over the films wrote me an email that said, ‘Holy fuck.’ And I said, ‘Well, where are the notes?’ And she said, ‘Those are the notes.’ Because it kind of goes nuts in a good way, right?” This interview is not the first time Cameron will talk about Avatar 4. While talking to Empire earlier in the year, he described the film as a “corker” and a “motherfuer.” He also revealed that he wasn’t certain the film will see the light of day or if he will be in the directorial seat. Nevertheless, he expressed his hopes that the film will be developed. Cameron also revealed that he modeled the Avatar franchise after Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. Before embarking on the project, Jackson had determined how the film would progress and communicated it to the actors. Cameron stated, “So I felt I had to do the same thing. I had to play this as if the books already existed. So, the only way for us to do that was to write all the scripts and let the actors read all the scripts and see where their characters were going and what it all meant.” The director revealed the scripts for the third, fourth, and fifth installments are ready and, if things go to plan, those films will be released in 2024, 2026, and 2027 respectively. The director further revealed that there is the potential for a sixth and seventh film if the preceding titles perform well at the box office. In Avatar: The Way of Water, Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, CCH Pounder, Dileep Rao, and Joel David Moore will reprise their roles as Jake Sully, Neytiri, Colonel Miles Quaritch, Parker Selfridge, Mo’at, Dr. Max Patel, and Dr. Norm Spellman respectively, while Sigourney Weaver will return as Kiri. Other cast members are Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Jermaine Clement, Jamie Flatters, Britain Dalton, and Trinity Jo-Li Bliss who play Ronal, Tonowari, General Frances Ardmore, Dr. Ian Garvin, Neteyam, Lo’ak, and Tuktirey respectively. By the way, Cameron recently stated that Avatar 2 will need to earn at least $2 billion to break even and turn a profit. Given that the original Avatar film is the highest-grossing film in box office history, it certainly sounds like an achievable feat. Besides, the film is set to debut in Chinese theaters on the same day as it does in North America, which will boost its chances of attaining Cameron’s milestone. Avatar: The Way of Water will hit theaters on Friday, December 16, 2022.
