On Earth, everything is almost stopped. And on Pandora, the explorers are also down. The coronavirus pandemic adds an additional difficulty to the follow-up to the Avatar saga by James Cameron. " This puts us in a difficult situation ," he told Empire . I want to get back to work on Avatar , which we are not allowed to do at the moment under laws and emergency rules. So everything is on hold for the moment . ”
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According to the director, the production of the film must pass through New Zealand. An impossible step today, but for how long? " We are trying to get back there as quickly as possible," he says with a hint of hope. The good side is that New Zealand seems to have been very effective in controlling the virus and that their goal is not to stem the epidemic, but to eradicate it, which they think ability to do with tests and in-depth contact research. "
The release of the second part of Avatar is still scheduled for December 2021. " So there is a good chance that our shooting will be delayed by a few months, but we can still do it, " said the director. James Cameron is all the more optimistic since he believes that the digital work done by the confined teams can make up for part of the shooting. “ Everyone at Weta Digital and Lightstorm works from home whenever possible. My work is done on stage with virtual cameras. So I can do a little editing, even if it's not great. "
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A few months ago, James Cameron had released several filming photos and illustrations. Since then, Disney has unveiled the release schedule for the saga: after Avatar 2 in December 2021, Avatar 3 is scheduled for 2023, Avatar 4 in 2025 and it will be necessary to wait until 2027 for Avatar 5 and the end of the pandoresque narrative arc. All of these four episodes are estimated at nearly a billion dollars in production costs according to Deadline. The first film had won the theatrical record for a feature film with three billion dollars, a record that has only been beaten since by Avengers: Endgame .
