‘I had to go create the frickin’ novels’: James Cameron Compares Avatar 2 With Lord of the Rings Sequels
James Cameron had compared his upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water to Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings series. After the hit 2009’s Avatar, the director is all set for the next installment of the Avatar franchise, which will be followed by three other sequels. He stated in 2006 that he would like to make sequels for Avatar if it was successful, announcing the first two sequels in 2010 after Avatar became a hit.
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The first part broke several box office records becoming the highest-grossing film at the time which surpassed Titanic by James Cameron and kept the records for twelve years. It kept its highest-grossing record worldwide for nearly a decade until it was overtaken by Avengers: Endgame in 2019.
James Cameron Compared Avatar: The Way of Water to Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings series
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In an interview with EmpireOnline, James Cameron shared how he planned the sequel for a decade, “What I said to the Fox regime at the time was, ‘I’ll do it, but we’ve got to play a larger game here. I don’t want to just do a movie and do a movie and do a movie.”
He explained that he had plans for something bigger comparing it to The Lord Of The Rings series, “I want to tell a bigger story.” He shared, “I said, ‘Imagine a series of novels like The Lord Of The Rings existed, and we’re adapting them.’ Now, that was great in theory, but then I had to go create the frickin’ novels from which to adapt it.”
The Director Knew About The Pressure That Came With The Making of Avatar Sequels
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Cameron shared how he justified himself for making the big call for Avatar as the three sequels that will follow the upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water was not easy and had a ‘lot of pressure’ on them. “I had to think long and hard whether I even wanted to make another Avatar film because it was kind of ours to lose,” he stated.
“When you’ve done something that’s been that transcendent in terms of success, do you really want to go try and do that again? There’s a lot of pressure on it. I thought about it for a good two years before we finally made a deal.”
The first of the four sequels was scheduled for December 2018, and the following for 2020, 2022, and 2023 respectively but the director said that 2018 is not going to happen. It was delayed due to a few reasons, the first being the Disney acquisition of Fox in 2019 while the pandemic hit in 2020 changing every plan.
Avatar: The Way of Water will be available in theaters on December 16th, 2022.
Source: EmpireOnline
