James Cameron shared details about the canceled Avatar sequel, The High Ground, revealing a 130-page script with plenty of “cool stuff,” including the zero-gravity battle.
Cameron discussed the canceled sequel Avatar in the new issue of Total Film magazine, per GamesRadar. He explained why the story was never shown, saying that the script lacked some important elements that the writing team was clearly able to highlight in the sequel that ended up in production, Avatar: The Way of Water.
“We were walking around,” he told the newspaper. “I was working with a team of writers. We had a lot of ideas. We kept trying to cram it in a box, and it didn’t quite fit. So at one point, I said, ‘I’m just going to finish, and see if it’s a movie.'” I did, and it came out, I think, at 130 pages. She was like, “Man, this is a great story. This is a great read.”
“But it was missing one of those crucial elements in the sequels, which is that it didn’t go into the unexpected enough. It also didn’t adequately play by the rules of Avatar, which is to connect us to the dream world, which has a spiritual component that we can’t even define in words. He marked every other square, but he didn’t specify that.”
Cameron and his team restructured certain parts of the High Ground script for incorporation into the upcoming Avatar movie series, but decided to adapt the rest of the story for a new graphic novel that hits shelves on December 6. A prequel to The Way of Water, which will be released in theaters 10 days later.
He said, “There’s some pretty cool stuff in it. I mean, you have a Na’vi fighting with bows and arrows in Zero-G.” “But it didn’t make enough of the overall story and substantive goals I had in mind. So we’re turning it into a graphic novel from Dark Horse. You’ll get to see that temporary battle that took place between the first movie and the second movie.”
Avatar: The Way of Water is directed by James Cameron and produced by Cameron and John Landau. Sees Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña return as Sulley and Neytiri, along with fellow cast members Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement and Kate Winslet.
Cameron confirmed that Avatar 2 had finished filming in September 2020. Meanwhile, he revealed that Avatar 3 is almost 95% complete, and this movie is slated for release on December 20, 2024, Avatar 4 in December 2026, and Avatar 5 in December 2028 – Although Cameron may not be leading all the sequels to come, if they end up doing so.
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
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