It's been 11 years since the cult sci-fi blockbuster Avatar hit screens (yes, we feel old), so fans will be happy to hear that creator James Cameron has revealed filming of the second installment is finally complete, following delays brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Not one to shy away from an ambitious film project, Cameron has not just been hard at work on this one movie - there are a whopping four sequels in the pipeline, with the franchise reportedly carrying a total $1 billion/£784,814,375 price tag.
The sequel to the hit 2009 sci-fi blockbuster has actually been in production for years, with its scheduled release date pushed back eight times.
Advert
But talking to Arnold Schwarzenegger in a video call ahead of the 2020 Austrian World Summit environmental conference, Cameron said the filming on Avatar 2 was "100 per cent complete".
"Covid hit us like it hit everybody...we lost about four and a half months of production," he said.
"As a result of that, we've rolled around one more full year for a release in December of 2022. That's been announced already. Now that doesn't mean I have an extra year to finish the film, because the day we deliver Avatar 2 we'll just start working on finishing Avatar 3."
The lengthy shoot began back in 2017 with work on the motion capture segments for both Avatar 2 and 3.
Advert
By 2019, Cameron had wrapped those segments on both films, with live-action filming commencing in New Zealand. Both films were on schedule to be completed by the end of 2019, until production was forced to shut down in March. Thankfully, it's now complete.
For those who need a little reminder of the original film, Avatar, which starred Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver, told the story of a tribe of blue-skinned aliens, the Na'vi, into which Worthington's human marine Jake Sully ingratiates himself.
Smashing records, it was the first film to gross more than $2 billion/£1,569,628 - an accolade it held for nearly a decade before being overtaken in 2019 by Avengers: Endgame.
While Cameron has been pretty scarce on the details for the new sequel, we do know that Jake Sully and Neytiri will return as they seek to keep their new family together.
Avatar 2, the first of the four sequels, is set to open in theatres on 16th December 2022 - we can't wait!
Featured Image Credit: 20th Century Fox