“From the beginning, one of the challenges was that there was too much material,” affirmed Amanda Silver, screenwriter of ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’.
A few days ago (just a couple of weeks) we have known the continuation of the adventures of Jake Sully and his family in Pandora. ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ hit theaters on December 16 and has kicked off a whole network of sequels that its director, James Cameron, has been developing for more than a decade. But, How is this saga being structured? Are there differences between the different sequels that will extend the adventures of the Na’vi on their home planet?
For anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to the landscape of Cameron’s franchise in recent weeks, it won’t come as a surprise to learn that the director plans to develop and release a total of 5 ‘Avatar’ movies. However, we have learned recently, through Varietywhat yes, there will be a slight change between the two “first” sequels, ‘Avatar 2’ and ‘Avatar 3’ (which is almost finished)and its followers, ‘Avatar 4’ and ‘Avatar 5’.
This was discovered through the writers of these first two continuations: Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silverwho talked about the development of history that they had gone through.
To find out how it all happened we have to travel back to 2013, when James Cameron decided to gather all the writers who would sign the future sequels. There they met Jaffa and Silver with Josh Friedmann (‘Snowpiercer’ series) and Shane Salerno (‘Armageddon’), which would end up writing ‘Avatar 4’ and ‘Avatar 5’, respectively. At this time, all the ideas that were raised for the following films were exposed with the aim of “synchronizing” these narratives.
However, almost immediately It was concluded that there was a problem with ‘Avatar 2’. As Silver put it:
“From the beginning, one of the challenges (we must admit that it was a delicious challenge) andthere was too much material. Carrying that burden was a problem in developing the first act of the sequel. There was an enormous amount of information. Shortly after I started writing, Cameron called us and said, ‘Look, we’ve got too much. We’re going to split it into two movies.'”
This “overinformation” was not an exaggeration at all. Cameron came with a total of 800 pages that he had collected over the years., all of them full of ideas that had to be developed in the films. The writers ended up defining it as the “Pandorapedia“.
Silver and Jaffa were to reintroduce Pandora and the Na’vi to the public after 13 years. In ‘Avatar 2′ they had to explain what had happened to the town in all that time, in addition to showing the children of Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and to discover new territories and new colonies of the Na’ saw.
Too much content (even for a movie that has ended up lasting more than 3 hours).
The sequels to ‘Avatar’ were planned to work independently of the original. yes they had lwith the intention of being interconnected, but that each tape function as a unique story within the same town and from the same family. In fact, the beginning of ‘The Sense of Water’ starts with a narration by Jake Sully about “the stories of the people” and the string of beads. One could imagine the film saga following a structure similar to that of a storytelling by the campfire.
However, due to the need to divide this first story into two parts, we will see that ‘Avatar 3’ is a more direct sequel to ‘Avatar 2’; and that ‘Avatar 4’ and ‘Avatar 5’ will work more independentlyas originally planned.
Until then, we will have to wish ‘The Sense of Water’ luck, since it has to position itself as the 3rd or 4th highest grossing film in history to be profitable. In case of not doing it, Cameron has warned that he could end the saga with ‘Avatar 3’.
‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ is already in theaters. ‘Avatar’ is available on Disney+.
Source: Fotogramas
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
