Giant Freakin Robot

With the expected release date of Avatar 2 in 2016, it will have been seven years between the first movie, released in 2009, and its sequel. That’s a long time, but director James Cameron is developing new filmmaking technology and software to further explore the world of Pandora in three new movies. It seems that if the project isn’t unique and challenging, the 59-year-old director isn’t interested. In an interview with RTL, the Avatar director opened up about the new sequel films and the challenges he’s facing to bring them to the big screen beginning in 2016.

All three movies upcoming Avatar movies will be made concurrently, and are expected to go into production this spring. Cameron says:

We’re still in the early stages. Right now we’re developing the software. I’m writing the scripts. We’re designing all the creatures and characters and the settings, and so on. So I’m not actually directing yet, but I’m doing all the other creative processes that lead up to that.

James Cameron is considered a visionary director because his films seem larger than life. From The Terminator to Titanic, James Cameron doesn’t make movies on a small scale. In 2009, Cameron’s Avatar dazzled audiences around the world as it became the highest grossing movie of all time. With his new film trilogy racing towards production this spring, one of the films’ stars has opened up about the Avatar sequels’ story.

In an interview with MTV, Zoe Saldana talks about returning to the planet Pandora as the warrior princess Neytiri of the Na’vi. Both Saldana and her co-star Sam Worthington have been confirmed for the next three movies. According to Saldana, the Avatar sequels will be more emotional and heartfelt than the original film, while not skimping on action or drama. Saldana said:

‘I went down to the studio that they’ve been setting up for the past three years. It was wonderful,’ Saldana told MTV. ‘Jim took us and gave us a tour of all the reference pictures, telling us the stories. I haven’t been able to read the scripts. They’re still working on them. We kind of get choked up. [Cameron] gets emotional telling us about the story. I get emotional hearing about it, so I’m looking forward to it.’

The long awaited sequels to the highest-grossing film of all time, James Cameron’s Avatar, are set to start production in 2014. While the plot details for Avatar 2, 3, and 4 are a bit murky, the sequel films will be shot in their entirety in New Zealand. Cameron came to an agreement with the New Zealand government to lock up the Avatar sequels in the Kiwi country.

According to Deadline, New Zealand lured James Cameron to shoot the Avatar sequels in their country with a 25% tax rebate and incentives. The first Avatar film was also shot in New Zealand, which created NZ$307M in the country’s local economy. With the Avatar sequels, Cameron is expected to created NZ$500M (US$413.1M) on local production activity such as visual effects and most of the film’s live-action shooting. About 90% of the films’ production crew will also come from New Zealand, and Cameron also came to an agreement to host at least one red carpet world premiere in the island nation. The move will create a deeper relationship between New Zealand, Lightstorm Entertainment, and Twentieth Century Fox.

Recent rumors suggest that production on the three Avatar sequels is scheduled to begin in October 2014. We know Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana will reprise their roles from the original film, as Jake Sully and Neytiri, respectively. But it looks like another familiar face will return for the sequels as well, one nobody would have expected, given that he was killed in the first movie. We’re talking about baddie Colonel Miles Quaritch.

In an interview with Deadline, James Cameron revealed that actor Stephen Lang will reprise his role as Quaritch in all three of the Avatar sequels. Given that whole death thing, it’s unclear how he will return for the new films. Cameron talked about how much he loves the actor and the character, and why he wants to bring him back in some way. Cameron says:

Steven was so memorable in the first film, we’re privileged to have him back. I’m not going to say exactly HOW we’re bringing him back, but it’s a science fiction story, after all. His character will evolve into really unexpected places across the arc of our new three-film saga. I really look forward to working with such a gifted actor, who’s also become a good friend.

James Cameron has been working on the Avatar sequels since the huge success of the original in 2009. That was four years ago, but it hasn’t been until recently that we’ve seen movement on the Na’vi front. While Avatar’s production was just as big as its box office, the sequels are an even bigger undertaking. Cameron isn’t content to make one film, oh no, he’s planning to make three sequels, all at the same time. So it’s more understandable why this process is taking such a long time. Now we have a production start on one of the most ambitious film projects of the decade, October, 2014.

According to Varitey, while on an Australian radio show, Avatar star Sam Worthington said that production on all three sequels will begin almost exactly a year from now. There were reports that the filming could start as early as January, but now it seems that’s not the case. “We are going to start this time next year and we will do two, three and four,” Worthington told Australia radio station NovaFM. “In one shot, we’ll do them simultaneously. I’ll be grateful if it finishes.”

The Internet Gods giveth and Internet Gods taketh away. On Tuesday, Latino Review reported that action icon Arnold Schwarzenegger would re-unite with director James Cameron for Avatar 2. The rumor was that Schwarzenegger would play an evil human general in the upcoming sequels. Now it appears that is not the case.

According to THR, a spokesperson from Twentieth Century Fox denied that Schwarzenegger is up for the part, or even taking meetings. Of course, Schwarzenegger previously worked with Cameron on the original Terminator, sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and the action comedy True Lies.

While it’s certainly plausible that Schwarzenegger would want to work with Cameron again, it looks like it’s not going to happen anytime soon. Schwarzenegger’s acting career took a serious detour while he served two terms as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 to 2011. The Austrian-born actor made his comeback with The Expendables 2 in 2012 and Kim Ji-woon’s American debut feature film The Last Stand in 2013. Landing a key role in Avatar 2 could put the former body builder squarely back on the A-List in Hollywood.