James Cameron made a big announcement about his plans for the "Avatar" sequels during Fox's final presentation at this year's CinemaCon.
The filmmaker surprised everyone when he revealed that instead of creating three sequels, he will come up with four new "Avatar" films. "We have decided to embark on a truly massive cinematic process," Cameron said.
The blockbuster director explained that doing just three films could limit their plans of making an exceptional movie franchise.
"We began to bump up against the limitations for our art form," he explained at the press conference, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
The first "Avatar" movie, which earned a total of $2.8 billion worldwide, was released in 2009. Cameron said that they are planning to release the second movie in Christmas 2018, while the succeeding films could be released in 2020, 2022, and 2023.
He also revealed that each film could stand alone from each other but could create an epic saga collectively.
Meanwhile, the filmmaker also confessed that he decided to create four sequels in response to a tweet from a fan saying that the first movie failed to make a big impression on moviegoers despite making a lot of money. He admitted that he gathered his crew to talk about the feedback and analyze how they can address it. This led them to come up with a lot of new ideas, which resulted in planning for four Avatar sequels instead of doing just one.
"The idea being that if we had five Avatar movies spanning, you know, two decades or whatever, and people were constantly being bombarded with Avatar from every direction, something would have to stick. So really, it all started with a tweet. Which is kind of amazing when you think about it," Cameron stated.
At the moment, actress Sigourney Weaver has been confirmed to reprise her character Grace Augustine in the three sequels. But there is no information yet whether she will also be featured in the fifth film.
