The first Avatar movie was released back in 2009, and it has taken many delays for the Avatar sequel, Avatar: Way of Water, to be fully complete. Avatar 2 director James Cameron explains what exactly inspired him to make the Avatar sequel in the first place.
Speaking with GQ, James Cameron opens up what inspired him to continue the Avatar into a franchise, involving how much the Avatar meant to him in his life, and how it hugely impacted him. Granted, it was due to the film-making box office history, but to him, he grew an emotional attachment to its storytelling. Check out his full story below:
“There was a period there, about a year and a half, where I didn’t even know if I wanted to make another Avatar film. I knew how all-consuming it would be. It basically took over my life for four years. I had no other life for four years making the first film. And I thought, Do I really want to do this again? It’s the highest-grossing film in history; can’t I just tag that base and move on?”
Of course, the question the director posed to himself was the very thing that motivated him to make the sequel possible. Cameron looks back at the time when he had to compare doing movies or doing the explorations himself, and well, you already know which one he picked to do.
“When you get into your mid-60s, you start realizing that the ax could fall at any moment. Maybe it’s next week, maybe it’s in 30 years. But the thing is, it wasn’t a decision between Avatar and something else in the movie industry. It was a decision between doing more movies and very probably Avatar movies, or not doing more movies and doing expedition stuff and ocean exploration and sustainability projects, which I’ve been doing on the side the whole time. Why not just do that? That’s more fulfilling… I’m a storyteller and there’s a story to be told.”
Avatar: Way of Water comes out on December 16, 2022.
Also Read: James Cameron Scrapped Original Avatar 2 Script For Being Too Predictable
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