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Movies & TV

22nd Apr 2018

James Cameron is comparing his upcoming Avatar 2 to a brilliant but very unexpected sequel

Rory Cashin

Avatar

The writer and director of the biggest box office movie of all time has made quite a statement.

In the almost-decade since the first Avatar movie came out, there have been several contenders to the box office crown.

The Avengers, The Force Awakens, The Jurassic World… all have tried, and all have failed to reach James Cameron’s behemoth takings of $2.788 billion.

In fact, the closest runner-up… is another James Cameron movie, 1997’s Titanic, with $2.187 billion.

However, in that same almost-decade, we have seen release dates for Avatar 2 come and go like the tide, and at the moment, the sequel is set for December 2020, with Avatar 3 set for December 2021, and then part four due in December 2024, and the fifth (and final?) entry due in Decemeber 2025, but that is all subject to change at the whim of the franchise’s creator.

Cameron is keeping busy outside of this series, getting back involved with the upcoming Terminator sequel, the first time he’s had a creative hand in that series since Terminator 2 back in 1991.

He also has a six-part docu-series about to be released, titled James Cameron’s Story Of Science Fiction, with the guy behind Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, True Lies, Titanic and, yes, Avatar, chatting about all things sci-fi.

It was during the press day for this series that he was asked about the consta-delayed Avatar sequel, and (via Collider) he made a very interesting sequel comparison:

“In terms of the story we’re telling… I’ve found myself as a father of five starting to think about what would an Avatar story be like if it was a family drama. What if it was The Godfather? So that’s what [the Avatar sequels are] – it’s a generational family saga.

“That’s very different than the first film. There’s still the same setting and the same respect for the ‘shock of the new’. We still want to show you things that you haven’t even seen or imagined, but the story is very different.

“It’s a continuation of the same characters… but what happens when warriors who are willing to go on suicide charges and leap off cliffs, what happens when they grow up and have their own kids? It becomes a very different story. Now the kids are the risk takers and the change makers…”

The Godfather Part II is widely considered one of – if not THE – greatest sequels of all time, so for Cameron to compare his upcoming movie to that saga is quite ballsy.

But then if you’re sitting pretty with two of the biggest box office money-makers of all time under your belt, we guess you’re entitled to be as ballsy as you chose to be.

We’ll know for certain once the movie comes out in 2020, if it comes out at all…