James Cameron Felt Technology Needed To Improve – In reality, it would be a further decade before James Cameron’s Avatar premiered, and there are several factors behind this extended delay. The primary reason for Avatar ‘s 15-year development is that the technology of the late 1990s simply wasn’t good enough to cope with the demands of Cameron’s concept.
As revealed through several interviews in the period between making Titanic and Avatar, Cameron began looking into the capabilities of CG technology after wrapping up Jack and Rose’s ill-fated boat trip, intending for Avatar to feature real actors who weren’t actually present on-screen. The filmmaker quickly decided that the technology of the day simply wasn’t up to this task and temporarily shelved the project.
During this period, James Cameron worked on documentaries such as Ghosts of the Abyss and Aliens of the Deep, both of which utilized digital 3-D filming techniques. This allowed the director to refine the processes that would eventually be used in James Cameron’s Avatar,
Contents
- 1 How long did Avatar 2 take to make?
- 2 Why did Avatar 2 take 13 years to make?
- 3 Why did it take 12 years to make Avatar?
- 4 When did Avatar 1 start filming?
- 5 How long did Avatar 3 take to make?
- 6 Did Avatar 2 make a profit?
- 7 How many avatars are planned?
- 8 How was Avatar water made?
- 9 How much of Avatar 2 is CGI?
- 10 Is Avatar 3 4 5 already made?
- 11 Why did Avatar 2 take so many years?
How long did Avatar 2 take to make?
How long did Avatar 2 take to make? – Avatar: The Way of Water took 12 years to make, with the sequel not beginning production until August 2017. In 2006, three years before the release of the first movie, Cameron said there’d be sequels if Avatar was a hit.
Why did Avatar 2 take 13 years to make?
The Real Reason The Avatar Sequels Took So Long Given the massive success of the sequel, many people are wondering why took so long to hit theaters. Avatar was released in 2009, not only being nominated for Best Picture but also eventually becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time.
Its success seemed to guarantee more to come and James Cameron always talked about an extensive franchise within Pandora and the world of the Na’vi, yet 13 years passed before Avatar 2 was finally released. So why did Avatar 2 take so long? With, people will be revisiting the blockbuster or checking it out for the first time.
With the long wait to finally see it, it is hard to believe Avatar 2 is actually available to watch at home. Some doubted the movie would actually happen at all with multiple delays and questions about the lasting impact of the original. While Avatar 2 ‘s box office success has silenced many of those doubters, it was still a surprisingly long wait to finally see the movie hit theaters. When James Cameron first began talking about more movies in this world, few could have guessed how long between Avatar and Avatar 2 fans would actually have to wait. Avatar ‘s sci-fi epic that soon became the highest-grossing film of all time, Avatar was considered a game-changer in 2009, one that lay the foundations for the special effects-heavy franchise blockbusters of today.
Quickly after that flush of success – with a whopping $2.788bn in the bank – Cameron and Fox announced two sequels, which is hardly surprising given Cameron had been talking about plans to make the film a franchise if the first one was successful enough all the way back in 2006. That sequel number soon expanded to four, but filming on the projects themselves was slow to happen.
Shooting days were set, then delayed repeatedly. Now, however, the first of the four Avatar sequels is finally out, despite all the Way of Water delays. Originally scheduled for 2014 and 2015, Avatar 2 and Avatar 3’s release dates were then changed to December 2020 and 2021 before more Way of Water delays, changing the date to December 2022 and December 2024, respectively.
- Avatar 2 features and explore different regions of Pandora, with a special focus on a location that exists underwater.
- Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 are currently scheduled for theatrical release in December 2026 and December 2028, respectively.
- After 13 years, the Avatar sequels all the way up to Avatar 5 are finally coming, but they’re incredibly late in the game.
At over a decade between films, entire franchises like The Hunger Games and Fantastic Beasts ran their course between the release of Avatar and Avatar 2, However, why Avatar 2 took so long was because of the massive undertaking of the production. Avatar 2 ‘s long-anticipated trailer offered several key pieces of information about the sequel, including its once-again groundbreaking CGI. It’s been no secret that James Cameron’s sequel would make heavy use of pioneering underwater filming technology.
This contributed to why Avatar 2 took so long to make, a necessary endeavor since Avatar: The Way of Water introduced a new Na’vi tribe, the Metkayina, who live around and in Pandora’s ocean. That’s not the only reason over a decade passed between Avatar and Avatar 2 though. There were several causes, but the main one is simple — James Cameron didn’t rush.
has always been known as a deeply personal project for Cameron, and it’s possible the pentalogy will be his magnum opus by the time it’s complete. As well as waiting for technology to catch up to his vision, James Cameron also made sure the story for The Way of Water solidified. Whether audiences even want more Avatar movies has been asked over the years, but specifically on the industry level, the sheer amount of Way of Water delays that have happened prior to getting Avatar 2 released was striking. Filmmaking is a business that lives or dies on being able to monopolize popular interest, and audiences can be notoriously fickle.
Creatives can risk rushing out a product to meet that fleeting demand and making a bad movie, or they can take their time and miss the buzz altogether. These are issues that Fox may have worried about when it came to their Avatar hopes, and with a studio change and lifespan extension via theme parks, that’s only become more pointed with time.
Yet James Cameron has always managed to soar over the shop talk of mere studios and executives. As one of the few directors in the industry who can essentially do whatever he wants, he decided to take his time with the seemingly and not be rushed by distributor demands or what is considered the cool thing of the day, explaining why Avatar 2 took so long.
Audiences are used to getting several films and TV shows a year from their favorite franchise, so Cameron being so deliberately slow with his makes it something of an anomaly in Hollywood. Of course, that’s always been the case. Whether it was Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Titanic, or the original Avatar, Cameron’s passion projects have always been treated as suspect by Hollywood – expensive follies destined to bomb.
Yet each time, he’s proven that wrong, delivering revered crowd-pleasers that rank as some of the biggest movies ever and muscle into serious awards discussion. Once again shown with Avatar 2, it seems betting against James Cameron is never wise. Plainly, the major reason why Avatar 2 took so long is the long pre-production state, a result of Cameron’s commitment to the special effects that set Avatar apart from other films of its time to begin with. A noted perfectionist, he made no qualms about taking his time and waiting for the technology to catch up to his vision.
In 2011, Cameron had talked about wanting to film the Avatar sequels in a higher frame rate, something that didn’t become mainstream in cinema until Peter Jackson made The Hobbit trilogy (and quickly disappeared after). By 2016, he was talking up the possibility of shooting, although he later admitted that the technology wasn’t there yet.
Nowadays, the kind of effects that seemed unique in 2009 are regular features of blockbuster cinema, but that only inspired Cameron to go further, even if it meant waiting for several more years. In this case, the director’s area of choice was water. Underwater settings have always fascinated Cameron – The Abyss and Titanic show it explicitly, backed up by his real-life deep-sea adventures – and since the very early days of the Avatar sequels that’s where he stated Avatar 2 would be set. The delay wasn’t just for Avatar 2, Over the years of that film’s development, it became intertwined with more and more movies, to the point where Cameron has a clear plan all the way up to Avatar 5 in 2028 (delayed from 2025). That’s another key reason; that intricate planning for the franchise included Cameron wanting to have the scripts for all four parts finished and ready for shooting before production began.
The true game plan is still unclear, but based on comments made by Cameron in an interview (via ), each Avatar sequel is intrinsically linked to the others: “The scripts took four years. You can call that a delay, but it’s not really a delay because from the time we pushed the button to really go make the movies, we’re clicking along perfectly.
We’re doing very well because of all the time that we had to develop the system and the pipeline and all that. We weren’t wasting time, we were putting it into tech development and design. So when all the scripts were approved, everything was designed.
Every character, every creature, every setting.” It’s surprisingly common for big franchises to enter back-to-back shooting schedules without completed scripts in a bid to get the movies out as fast as possible. The second and third movies in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean series were filmed back-to-back and much was made about the fact that the screenwriters were often finishing the script mere days before scenes were filmed.
Given the criticism over the muddled and incomplete the storytelling in those films, it’s no wonder that Cameron wasn’t willing to be rushed on the basic writing level until he got the story and development to the point where he felt it was authentic to what he was trying to convey. Regardless of why Avatar 2 took so long, the wait was worth it. In short: Avatar: The Way of Water looks incredible. The masterful CGI alone makes the long overdue movie worth the wait, and both audiences and critics have been awed by it on the big screen.
James Cameron takes audiences to a world beyond imagination in Avatar 2, and this definitely justifies some of the Way of Water delays. Pandora has never looked better, and watchers are introduced to an entirely new, Though Avatar didn’t come out when CGI was in its infancy, it’s unclear if James Cameron could’ve made a sequel of this stature back in 2013 before advancements in technology were made.
The aquatic Metkyina live in a setting that simply wouldn’t have been as immersive with early 2010s-CGI. In addition, the extra time gave studios a longer period to work on the story. While amazing CGI has secured Avatar’s place as a near-unparalleled cinematic spectacle, the narrative was criticized as feeling a little lackluster. Though there was good reasoning behind why Avatar 2 took so long, fans will not have to endure a 13-year wait for the upcoming Avatar 3, The release date for the next sequel is currently set for December 20, 2024. While it is possible that release date could change due to unforeseen circumstances, the sequel is already very much on the way.
‘s box office pushed the sequels ahead, jokingly saying, ” looks like I can’t wiggle out of this, I’m gonna have to do these other these other sequels,” However, more importantly, Cameron is not starting from scratch as he did with Avatar 2, Instead, not only has he mapped out the sequels and their story arc, but Cameron confirmed that filming for Avatar 3 is already complete and the post-production is underway.
Even if there are delays, Avatar 3 is well along its way to theaters. He also confirmed that Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 have also been written and Avatar 4 is also partially filmed. While the franchise will not conclude until 2028, there will be no long wait like there was for Avatar 2,
Why did it take 12 years to make Avatar?
Hollywood usually cranks out sequels as fast as they can make them. But it took 13 years for Avatar: The Way of Water to follow the original Avatar, James Cameron hasn’t made a single feature film between the two. So why did it take so long? That‘s the subject of our latest Avatar video.
- And it turns out, there isn’t just one simple answer but a combination of factors that led to it taking more than a decade for a new Avatar.
- For example, James Cameron wanted to make several sequels back-to-back, but that meant he needed to write all the scripts before he shot anything.
- Plus, Cameron wanted to make the first sequel about underwater Pandoran creatures, but the technology to do traditional motion-capture doesn’t work underwater.
So Cameron and his team basically had to invent a totally new way to do mocap underwater. And those are just two of the reasons why The Way of Water took so long. For more, watch the video below: If you liked that video on why it took so long to make a sequel to Avatar, check out more of our videos below, including one on the future of the Avatar franchise and our theories about Avatar 3, all the Easter eggs and Avatar references in The Way of Water, and our recap of the original Avatar,
When did Avatar 1 start filming?
Filming – for Avatar began in April 2007 in and, Cameron described the film as a hybrid with a full live-action shoot in combination with computer-generated characters and live environments. “Ideally at the end of the day the audience has no idea which they’re looking at,” Cameron said.
The director indicated that he had already worked four months on nonprincipal scenes for the film. The live action was shot with a modified version of the proprietary digital 3-D, developed by Cameron and Vince Pace. In January 2007, Fox had announced that filming for Avatar would be done at 24 frames per second despite Cameron’s strong opinion that a 3-D film requires higher to make less noticeable.
According to Cameron, the film is composed of 60% computer-generated elements and 40% live action, as well as traditional, Motion-capture photography lasted 31 days at the stage in in Los Angeles. Live action photography began in October 2007 at Stone Street Studios in and was scheduled to last 31 days.
- More than a thousand people worked on the production.
- In preparation of the filming sequences, all of the actors underwent professional training specific to their characters such as archery, horseback riding, firearm use, and hand-to-hand combat.
- They received language and dialect training in the Na’vi language created for the film.
Before shooting the film, Cameron also sent the cast to the to get a feel for a rainforest setting before shooting on the soundstage. During filming, Cameron made use of his, a new way of directing motion-capture filmmaking. The system shows the actors’ virtual counterparts in their digital surroundings in real time, allowing the director to adjust and direct scenes just as if shooting live action.
According to Cameron, “It’s like a big, powerful, If I want to fly through space, or change my perspective, I can. I can turn the whole scene into a living miniature and go through it on a 50 to 1 scale.” Using conventional techniques, the complete virtual world cannot be seen until the motion-capture of the actors is complete.
Cameron said this process does not diminish the value or importance of acting. On the contrary, because there is no need for repeated camera and lighting setups, costume fittings and make-up touch-ups, scenes do not need to be interrupted repeatedly. Cameron described the system as a “form of pure creation where if you want to move a tree or a mountain or the sky or change the time of day, you have complete control over the elements”.
- Cameron gave fellow directors and a chance to test the new technology.
- Spielberg said, “I like to think of it as digital makeup, not augmented animation,
- Motion capture brings the director back to a kind of intimacy that actors and directors only know when they’re working in live theater.” Spielberg and were also able to visit the set to watch Cameron direct with the equipment.
To film the shots where CGI interacts with live action, a unique camera referred to as a “simulcam” was used, a merger of the 3-D fusion camera and the virtual camera systems. While filming live action in real time with the simulcam, the CGI images captured with the virtual camera or designed from scratch, are superimposed over the live action images as in and shown on a small monitor, making it possible for the director to instruct the actors how to relate to the virtual material in the scene.
How long did Avatar 3 take to make?
Filming took three years – Cameron decided to shoot Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 at the same time, a wise move considering how long it took the second movie to get into production. But that meant delays in filming. Shooting started in 2017 and lasted three years. Cameron also demanded a lot of his actors. Much of the cast had to film underwater sequences in a 900,000-gallon tank built for the films. Water bubbles and scuba gear interfered with the motion-capture process, so the actors spent months learning to hold their breath for minutes on end. (Kate Winslet reportedly set the record on set: She held her breath for over seven minutes.) The post-production on the visual effects-heavy film also took a long period of time. The Avatar sequels, perhaps unsurprisingly, were incredibly expensive to make. Cameron told GQ that the movie would “have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history. That’s your threshold. That’s your break even.” But to date, Cameron’s films have always made their money back, even as he’s set records again and again for producing the most expensive movies in history. The future of the various Avatar sequels seem to hinge on whether he can pull off the same trick with Way of Water. Write to Eliana Dockterman at Avatar: The Way of Water &body=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F6238235%2Fwhy-avatar-2-took-so-long%2F” target=”_self” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>[email protected],
Has Avatar 2 broken even?
Avatar sequel crosses $2 billion at box office.
Are they making 5 avatars?
Following the groundbreaking release of Avatar in 2009, James Cameron ‘s epic sci-fi franchise about a humanoid species called the Na’vi is finally back with the first of several sequels. After a 13-year gap, the saga will pick up with Avatar: The Way of Water in December before continuing on with what are currently being dubbed Avatar 3, Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 in 2024, 2026 and 2028, respectively.
- Stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver and others look back on the original while teasing what’s to come as The Way of Water picks up on their story over a decade later.
- It’s been about 10 years,” Weaver tells ET of the time she’s committed to the franchise since starring in the first one.
“And then, in the meantime, Jim Cameron has written four amazing stories about what is now a family, the Sully family. And so, the stakes are higher. There are more amazing characters. And, of course, a whole new world underwater to experience.”
What is the longest movie ever made?
1. The Longest Movie Certificated by Guinness World Records – The longest film ever made, according to Guinness World Records, is ” The Cure for Insomnia ” (1987), directed by John Henry Timmis IV. It lasts 85 hours and is considered an extraordinary achievement in the film industry.
- However, as previously said, most moviegoers and IMDB classify “Logistics” as the longest film in the world.
- The Cure for Insomnia” is a one-of-a-kind film in which L.D.
- Groban, a director, actor, and poet, reads a single scene from his poem “A Cure for Insomnia” over the course of three and a half days.
The movie had some parts where they included short clips from heavy metal music videos and pornographic videos. The film is more of a performance art piece than a typical film, and it has only been shown in its entirety a few times.
Did Avatar 2 make a profit?
Avatar 2 Profit Revealed: Way Of Water Makes Over Half A Billion – IMDb A new study claims that earned over half a billion in profit, settling the debate regarding how much the sequel needed to make in order to break even. Serving a follow-up to his 2009 smash hit, continues the story of Jake () and Neytiri () as they deal with the return of humans to Pandora.
The film earned mostly positive reviews from audiences and critics alike and was a major box office success, earning over $2.3 million and becoming the third highest-grossing movie of all time. Now, per a new study from Deadline, ‘s actual profit sits at $531.7 million. After factoring out the additional costs of filming most of and parts of, which were shot concurrently, the film’s production budget is pegged at $400 million.
The film’s $2.3 million box office haul is. : Avatar 2 Profit Revealed: Way Of Water Makes Over Half A Billion – IMDb
How many avatars are planned?
Photo: Twentieth Century Fox Filming has begun on the four sequels to Avatar, James Cameron’s 2009 3-D CGI adventure about a paraplegic marine who lands on the planet Pandora to mine unobtainium. This time, though, Cameron is really gonna make it happen — he’s not playing around! He’s spent much of the last decade teasing us about the upcoming installments, throwing out piecemeal updates (with occasional breaks for a Titani c rerelease or to shade Alien: Covenant ).
But this time, he’s serious. Avatar 2 is just the first of the installments known as the The Avatar Sequels, which will come with a budget of $1 billion. (That’s three and a half Lord of the Rings trilogies, six Wonder Woman s, 66 Hurt Locker s, and 250 Moonlight s.) Below, a timeline of all Cameron’s Avatar promises that once seemed broken, or at least teetering on the edge of breaking, but he’s definitely about to make good on them, you’ll see.
You’ll all see. January 7, 2010: Days after Avatar made $1 billion, Cameron announces that we’re getting a sequel. “Yes, there’ll be another,” he tells the crowd after a screening in Los Angeles. January 14, 2010: Now he says there won’t just be another — there will be several more.
“I’ve had a story line in mind from the start — there are even scenes in Avatar that I kept in because they lead to the sequel,” he tells EW, “It just makes sense to think of it as a two or three film arc, in terms of the business plan.” February 16, 2010: We’re not only getting several more trips to Pandora, but a book ! “I told myself, if it made money, I’d write a book.
There are things you can do in books that you can’t do with films,” Cameron says. Your middle-school librarian nods in agreement. August 7, 2010: Now Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 will be filmed back-to-back. “We’re talking about that, that makes a lot of sense, given the nature of these productions.
We can bank all the capture and then go back and do cameras,” he says, But really, he’s focused on the prequel novel: “I didn’t want to do some cheesy novelization,” he says, “where some hack comes in and makes shit up.” March 7, 2010, an aside: Cameron loses the Oscar. (Later on, he’ll say the Oscars don’t award his kinds of movies anymore, meaning “big, visual cinema.”) April 21, 2010: The Avatar sequel, Cameron says, will dive deep (not into the history — that’s for the novel) into the ocean.
“Part of my focus in the second film is in creating a different environment — a different setting within Pandora. And I’m going to be focusing on the ocean on Pandora, which will be equally rich and diverse and crazy and imaginative, but it just won’t be a rain forest,” he tells the Los Angeles Times,
October 27, 2010: Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 are definitely happening ASAP — he passed on Sony’s never-realized Cleopatra to work on them. Fox made a big donation to his environmental green fund to make sure the trilogy rises to the tippity top of his to-do list. Cameron is shooting for a December 2014 and December 2015 release.
May 7, 2012: Not just Avatar 2 and Avatar 3, Now Cameron has an Avatar 4 in store too, He says he’s Avatar only. Literally, he says this: “I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the Avatar business. Period. That’s it. I’m making Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4, and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them,” he tells the New York Times,
- He confirms it formally in August 2013.
- December 2013: Avatar 2, Avatar 3, and Avatar 4 will shoot in New Zealand,
- Not sure when, but probably soon-ish? When you jot it down in your calendar, maybe use pencil or one of those fancy erasable pens they sell at Staples.
- April 12, 2014: Cameron says they’re in preproduction ! Go ahead and set those iCal alerts.
January 14, 2015: He says Avatar 2, Avatar 3, and Avatar 4 are delayed, but only for a couple years, ideally 2017. So it’s a little delay, not a big delay. If we’re using Google calendar by this point, adjust it accordingly. April 28, 2015: Cameron isn’t just giving us Avatar 2, Avatar 3, and Avatar 4,
Did you think we’d get away without an Avatar 5? He and his writing team have come up with five whole freaking scripts. We’re getting Avatar 5, too. January 1, 2016: He’s losing steam. How can he get it done? The Wrap reports that Avatar 2 has been ” suspended indefinitely,” April 14, 2016: “The next time I see you will be on Pandora,” Cameron tells a Comic Con audience,
He’s back, baby! And this time, he’s promising a new Avatar nearly every other Christmas: Avatar 2 is slated for release on Christmas 2018, with Avatar 3 following on Christmas 2020, Avatar 4 on Christmas 2022, and Avatar 5 on Christmas 2023. September 8, 2016: Sam Worthington is deep into his Christian movie stardom, Zoe Saldana is with Guardians of the Galax y now, but Cameron is still hard at work on those Avatar movies.
You’ll get them when you get them. Okay?!? “We haven’t moved that target yet, but we will if we need to,” Cameron says, “The important thing for me is not when the first one comes out but the cadence of the release pattern.” April 22, 2017: Shady’s back, tell a friend: Cameron has started production with an adjusted timeline: Expect Avatar 2 on December 18, 2020; Avatar 3 on December 17, 2021; Avatar 4 on December 20, 2024; and Avatar 5 on December 19, 2025.
September 25, 2017: Seven years later, Cameron has started filming ! Fox says the first Avatar sequel will be released December 18, 2020. Avatar 3 comes a year later, and the last two are due December 2024 and 2025. The Avatar Sequels aren’t just about the destination (again, Pandora, in case you’ve forgotten in the interim).
- Avatar is about Cameron’s journey.
- May 7, 2019: It has only been 588 days since this extremely important timeline has been updated, and I have returned to offer critical news! (You think the Avatar sequels are your ally? You merely adopted the Avatar sequels.
- I was born into them, molded by them !) In light of the Disney-Fox acquisition, the House of Mouse has released an updated — and exhaustive — release schedule for all of its new titles,
“Four forthcoming Avatar films, expanding the vibrant world of Pandora, will release on the pre-Christmas weekend every other year beginning in 2021,” Disney says. We’re getting the sequel on December 17, 2021; Avatar 3 on December 22, 2023; Avatar 4 on December 19, 2025; and Avatar 5 on December 17, 2027.
(Extremely optimistic of James Cam’ron to assume we will still be living on a habitable planet in 2027, frankly!) These movies may or may not be titled Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: The Seed Bearer, Avatar: The Tulkun Rider, and Avatar: The Quest for Eywa. Your move, Marvel, March 17, 2020: Things were going so well in the near-year between spring 2019 and spring 2020! (Granted, James Cam’ron did get into a random feud with a diver, but that is actually very fun and petty drama!) Production on the Avatar sequels, however, screeched to a halt due to the coronavirus.
As cities around the globe were shutting down to contain the virus, Avatar producer Jon Landau told the New Zealand Herald that production was temporarily suspended: “We’ve delayed it. We had plans to come down Friday night with a group of people and start back up and we made the decision to hold off and continue working here, and come down there a little bit later than we’d planned.” Weta Digital would continue to work on the movie’s digital effects during the pause in production.
April 2, 2020: Other directors and other movies are falling victim to the global shutdown, with release plans and opening days shifting on the calendar. Disney releases an updated release calendar of its films, noting that the first Avatar sequel is still slated to emerge December 17, 2021. May 11, 2020: Let’s be reasonable here: Production on all these Avatar sequels can only last so long.
Time is ticking! James Cam’ron gave an update to Empire, detailing his frustration with the production shutdown. “It’s putting a major crimp in our stride here,” he said. “I want to get back to work on Avatar, which right now we’re not allowed to do under state emergency laws or rules.
- So it’s all on hold right now.” Speaking from his Malibu home, the filmmaker explained that he was about to travel halfway across the globe for a phase of the shoot before lockdown put paid to those plans.
- We were about to shoot down in New Zealand, so that got pushed.
- We’re trying to get back to it as quick as we can.” May 22, 2020: And we back, and we back, and we back, and we back, and we back! (A Chance the Rapper reference is reasonable here, I think, because in many ways the Avatar sequels are all we’ve got.) Producer Jon Landau announced that production is resuming in June.
“Our Avatar sets are ready — and we couldn’t be more excited to be headed back to New Zealand next week,” he wrote, sharing a photo of a “command vessel” and a “jetboat.” Come hell, high water, or a global pandemic, the first Avatar sequel is coming December 17, 2021! Watch this space.
- July 23, 2020: Or not! Disney pushes all Avatar sequels back a year, giving Avatar 2 a new release date of December 2022.
- August 2020: Technically this is not related to an Avatar sequel announcement — it is barely related to canonical Avatar, as imagined by Cameron — but really you must see Joe Rogan earnestly compare a real live person to Na-apostrophe-vi.
September 10, 2020: Sigourney Weaver gives the thumbs-up while performing a mocap stunt, instilling confidence that the film is definitely, totally, unequivocally being made. September 27, 2020: Avatar 2 is almost done! Avatar 3 is almost-almost done! “We’re 100 percent complete on Avatar 2 and sort of 95 percent complete on Avatar 3, ” James Cam’ron told Arnold Schwarzenegger during a one-on-one for the 2020 Austrian World Summit, per Deadline,
- We’re able to operate.
- We’re able to shoot and have a more or less normal life here.
- We were very fortunate, so I don’t see any roadblocks to us getting the picture finished, getting both pictures finished.” The director wouldn’t divulge any other details about the sequels.
- I can’t tell you anything about the story.
I believe in the mystery and the great reveal.” And I believe in Avatar ! March 11, 2022: Zoe Saldana says she cried watching the first 20 minutes of the upcoming Avatar sequel. April 27, 2022: Praise Eywa! Fans finally get to watch the very first teaser trailer for the upcoming sequel, which now has a name.
- It will be called Avatar: The Way of Water.
- Producer Jon Landau says that the trailer will premiere in theaters on Friday, May 6, ahead of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
- May 9, 2022: Seapunk is back, baby.
- Three days after debuting in theaters, The Way of Water ‘s first teaser trailer splashes its way onto YouTube,
July 4, 2022: Cameron tells Empire he might “pass the baton” to another director after the third or fourth Avatar movie in the Pandora-verse. According to Cameron, Avatar 3 is happening no matter what, but the fate of the fourth and fifth sequels might depend on “market forces.” August 23, 2022: The original Avatar film will be returning to theaters on September 23 in anticipation of the long-awaited sequel, along with a new trailer for the old movie.
August 30, 2022: In Interview Magazine, Sigourney Weaver extols the strangeness of her role in the film. “I would say that it’s the biggest stretch I get to play in every possible way,” she tells Elizabeth Banks. “I think if Jim Cameron didn’t know me really well, he wouldn’t have cast me as something as goofy as this.
I had to work in a completely different way to play this character, a very physical way.” Weaver is also confident about her physical abilities in the film. “I was older than a lot of the other people, and we had to do a lot of parkour,” she says. “We had to do burpees.
- We had to do free-diving.
- My husband is from Hawaii and he’s a big swimmer and body surfer, so we took the training together, and we both one day held our breath for six and a half minutes.” Sigourney Weaver will be swimmin’ on through The Way of Water.
- September 6, 2022: It is now officially 100 days until The Way of Water opens in theaters.
November 7, 2022 : Cameron reveals to Total Film that there was a scrapped Avatar sequel titled Avatar: The Higher Ground, It was a 130-page script that had “Na’vi fighting with bows and arrows in zero-G” but “didn’t play enough by Avatar rules,” according to Cameron.
While most of the elements have been reincorporated into other projects, like the pending Avatar sequels, the unused portions that focus on the story between the first and second films have been adapted into a graphic novel coming December 6. November 30, 2022: Worthington tells Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that “about 80, 90 percent” of Avatar 3 has been shot.
He adds that because the child actors were aging out, “a few scenes” of Avatar 4 have also already been filmed. December 10, 2022: James Cameron reveals in an interview with French outlet 20 Minutes that Avatar 3 will introduce a new culture of the Na’vi, the Ash people.
- He also shares that audiences will see a darker side of the Na’vi people as they will be the antagonists of the film.
- December 16, 2022: Avatar: The Way of Water premieres in wide release, but Cameron is already looking ahead.
- He gives a rundown of the situation with the sequels, admitting there are unanswered questions left in Avatar 2,
“You can call it sequel bait, but I’m not trying to justify a sequel,” Cameron says to Entertainment Weekly, “We’ve already shot the other damn movie. I don’t have to sell it to anybody.” To explain why, he elaborates on what Worthington said. “I love Stranger Things, but you get the Stranger Things effect where they’re supposed to still be in high school and they look like they’re 27,” he roasts.
- The director also teases a time jump, specifically on “page 35 of the script in movie 4.” “We jump as many years as we need to jump,” he adds cryptically.
- But time isn’t the only thing broadening throughout the Avatar sequels.
- Each movie is going to introduce audiences to new clans, new cultures on Pandora,” Landau says.
“Once we introduce a character, they stay a part of the ongoing evolution. We just add to it. So you can expect to see the Metkayina that you meet in this movie in subsequent movies. There are other clans that we’ll introduce in movie 3 that you’ll see in movie 4 and so on and so forth.” December 17, 2022: Avatar 2 actor Edie Falco goes on The View and says she thought the film had already come out and not done well since she hadn’t heard anything about its release after shooting the film four years back.
- So I thought, It happens,” Falco said.
- She has since learned that the film is out, but does she know if she’s in Avatar 3 ? January 6, 2023: James Cameron tells Chris Wallace on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? that Avatar 3 is “in the can,” Avatar 4 is partially shot, and 4 and 5 are both written.
- Cameron says that since Avatar: The Way of Water has crossed the $1.5 billion mark globally, it all but confirms that the next movies will go forward as planned.
“It looks like just with the momentum that the film has now that will easily pass our break even in the next few days, so it looks like I can’t wiggle out of this — I’m gonna have to do these other sequels,” Cameron says. “I know what I’m going to be doing the next six or seven years.
The point is we’re going to be okay. I’m sure that we’ll have a discussion soon with with the top folks at Disney about the game plan going forward for Avatar 3. ” He added that his team is currently in post-production on CG work for the next film. “We’ve begun a franchise at this point,” he portends. “We’ve begun a saga that can now play out over multiple films.” June 13, 2023: The Avatar sequels are moving on back to span a decade of release dates, with the last one now scheduled to be released in 2031, by which time we assume the human race will have made it to real Pandora and the whole concept will be rendered meaningless.
First up, Avatar 3 is moving to December 19, 2025, from December 20, 2024. Avatar 4 will then be released on December 21, 2029, instead of December 18, 2026, and Avatar 5 is going to be out December 19, 2031, rather than the originally intended December 22, 2028.
- Each Avatar film is an exciting but epic undertaking that takes time to bring to the quality level we as filmmakers strive for and audiences have come to expect,” producer Jon Landau wrote on Twitter,
- The team is hard at work and can’t wait to bring audiences back to Pandora in December 2025.” And we can’t wait to drive our flying cars to get there.
This post has been updated. All of the Avatar Sequel Announcements: A Timeline
How was Avatar water made?
What Filming ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ Actually Looked Like on Set (EXCLUSIVE) In this exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of ‘s from its upcoming digital release, the film’s cast and crew reveal the multiple innovative methods they deployed to shoot the film, as the production team quite literally learned how to work vis-à-vis the way of water.
- Going from land to water was a big adjustment for the cast.
- Stars Zoe Saldaña, Sam Worthington and discuss having to learn to regulate their bodies and breathing within this unfamiliar layer of the set so they could properly capture the essence of Cameron’s vision.
- There’s not just the physical challenge of holding your breath,” says Winslet, who plays Ronal in the film.
“There’s then the added challenge of acting out a scene underwater where everything is very different. You’re having to imagine coral reefs; you’re having to picture other Na’vi swimming around you. Then you have the challenge of your movements are very, very different underwater — finding that serenity and that calm.” The actors swam in performance capture wetsuits and goggles around fully submerged sets.
- The medium made actors’ movements more fluid, allowing their characters’ actions to appear far more realistic than they would have with the use of wire suspension systems.
- As for the technical part of filming, the crew created a series of decks using unistrut systems hooked up to gantries and chain motors that could be lifted out of the water.
Sets could be built above the water and then lowered down when it came time to film. The creation of such adaptable systems allowed for immense mobility of the set, allowing platforms to be titled to allow for better interaction between actor and animated topography.
How much of Avatar is CGI?
The progress of motion picture complexity has been driving the film industry’s continuous pursuit for technological evolution. The linear technological evolution of filmmaking has empowered filmmakers by offering a more diverse catalogue of tools and techniques; however, it is the filmmaker’s ability to effectively utilize this technology that truly adds value to the cinematic quality of a film.
- Technological advancements in filmmaking techniques, cameras, animation, sound recording, and editing have expanded the creative potential of filmmakers.
- Filmmaking has made progress in leaps and bounds since the beginning of the 1890s to present.
- As the evolution of the technologies progressed, the filmmaker had an increased arsenal of tools to utilize.
The evolution of animation techniques to computer-generated imagery has opened up a world of possibilities that previously only existed in the imaginations of filmmakers and animators. James Cameron’s influence in this industry and specific focus has been profound.
His creation of the movie Avatar showcases the tremendous impact he has made on the industry and the technological evolution of motion pictures. The Beginning of Film Making Filmmaking has progressed a long way since the 90’s, with the invention of the first motion-picture camera and the establishment of the first film production companies and cinemas.
The early days of film in the 1890s utilized little cinematic technique, no camera movement, and flat compositions. Until 1927, films had an absence of sound, an era known as the silent era of film. Film theaters used live musicians and live sound effects during this time. Louis Le Prince’s pioneering single-lens Cine Camera-Projector MkII, the first film camera in the world. The early 1900s marked the emergence of the first modern-day motion pictures, where filmmakers began to introduce basic editing techniques and film narrative.
In 1897, Robert W. Paul built the first rotating camera for taking panning shots. Filmmakers utilized trick cinematography such as stop-motion techniques and double exposure of the film.G.A. Smith initiated reverse motion as a special effect technique by repeating an action a second time while filming it with an inverted camera, and then joining the tail of the second negative to that of the first.
The first films to consist of more than one shot appeared toward the end of the 19 th century. The pioneer of real film continuity was British filmmaker Robert W. Paul. The further development of action continuity in multi-shot films started with George Albert Smith’s The Kiss in the Tunnel.
The film starts with a shot from a “phantom ride” at the point at which the train goes into a tunnel, and continues with the action on a set representing the interior of a railway carriage, where a man steals a kiss from a woman, and then cuts back to the phantom ride shot when the train comes out of the tunnel.
In 1900, George Albert Smith and James Williamson introduced continuity of action across successive shots. Their film, Seen Through the Telescope, showcases a street scene with a young man tying a shoelace and then caressing his girlfriend’s foot, all while an old man observes this through a telescope.
- There is then a cut to a close shot of the man’s hands on the woman’s foot, which is shown through a black circular mask, and then a cut back to the continuation of the original scene.
- Smith also pioneered the use of the close-up shot in his films Seen Through a Telescope and Grandma’s Reading Glasses.
This inspired him to develop ideas of breaking a scene shot in one place into a series of shots taken from different camera positions. James Williamson concentrated on making films that took action from one place shown in one shot to the next shown in another shot in films like Stop Thief!, which evolved into a period of filmmaking that used “chase films”.
The Beginning of Animation British film pioneer Arthur Melbourne-Cooper utilized animation for the first time in 1899 in his short film Matches: An Appeal, The short film was a thirty-second long stop-motion animated piece intended to encourage the audience to send matches to British troops fighting the Boer War.
In 1906, Albert Edward Smith and James Stuart Blackton took the next step with their creation, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, The film primarily consisted of cartoon drawings of people moving from one pose to another. In a very short section of the film, things are made to appear as though they are moving, by altering the drawings themselves from frame to frame.
This eventually turned out to be the basis of standard animated cartoons. In 1907, Edwin S. Porter and J. Stuart Blackton further developed the technique of single frame animation. Edwin Porter’s Teddy Bears showed toy bears that moved on their own, and in the latter film building tools were made to perform construction tasks without human intervention, by using frame-by-frame animation.
During the 1910s, the production of animated short films known as “cartoons” became an industry of its own, with cartoon shorts being produced for viewing in movie theaters. John Randolph Bray was considered to be the most successful producer at the time.
Bray and animator Earl Hurd patented the cel animation process, which dominated the Animation Industry for the rest of the decade. The cel animation process was an important innovation for traditional animation as it allowed some parts of each frame to be repeated from frame to frame, thus saving time spent on labor.
Following the production of animated short films, short stop-motion animation was produced. Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton produced The Humpty Dumpty Circus – the 1 st short stop-motion animation. Stop motion is a technique in which real objects are moved around in the time between their images being recorded, so that when the images are viewed at a normal frame rate the objects appear to move by some invisible force.
- The link below provides an example of recently recorded short-stop motion film about MnM’s desperate struggle to fit in and belong in today’s world.
- In 1914, John Bray opened John Bray Studios, which revolutionized the way animation was created and developed.
- Earl Hurd, one of Bray’s employees, patented the cel technique, which involved animating moving objects on transparent celluloid sheets.
In 1915, only a year later, Max and Dave Fleischer invented rotoscoping – the process of using film as a reference point for animation. This technique was responsible for the birth of animated classics such as Ko-Ko the Clown, Betty Boop, Popeye the Sailor Man, and Superman, Cell Animation CGI Revolutionizing Animation The creation of computer-generated imagery (CGI) revolutionized animation. The process of CGI animation is still very tedious, like traditional animation. A key difference between CGI animation and traditional animation is that drawing is replaced by 3D modeling.
- Filmmakers utilize a non-photorealistic rendering called cel-shading to make the computer graphics appear hand-drawn.
- The end result of cel-shading has a very simplistic feel like that of a hand-drawn animation.
- However, the process is very complex.
- The cel-shading process starts with a typical 3D model.
Cel-shading differs from conventional rendering in its non-photorealistic illumination model. Conventional (smooth) lighting values are calculated for each pixel and then quantized to a small number of discrete shades to create the characteristic “flat look” – where the shadows and highlights appear more like blocks of color rather than mixed in a smooth way. The Utah teapot rendered using cel-shading Computer animation only applies to dynamic images that resemble a movie, while computer generated images of landscapes might be static. Computer animation refers to dynamic images that do not allow user interaction, and the term virtual world is used for the interactive animated environments.
Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to the art of stop-motion animation of 3D models and frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations. Computer generated animations are more controllable than other more physically-based processes, such as constructing miniatures for effects shots or hiring extras for crowd scenes.
It is also more controllable in that it allows the creation of images that would not otherwise be feasible using any other technology. It can also allow a single graphic artist to produce such content without the use of actors, expensive set pieces, or props.
- An innovation in CGI technologies is being able to utilize advanced motion capturing techniques.
- Motion capture offers several advantages over traditional computer animation of a 3D model, an example being rapid real time results.
- Motion capture allows more complex movement and realistic physical interactions such as secondary motions, weight, and exchange of forces to be easily recreated in a physically accurate manner.
The amount of animation data that can be produced within a given time is extremely large when compared to traditional animation techniques. An example of computer animation which is produced in the “motion capture” technique Performance capturing in CGI, a subset of motion capturing, has been a recent capability involving capturing subtle expressions in the face and fingers. Performance capture, also known as high fidelity facial motion capture, is the next generation of fidelity and is utilized to record the more complex movements in a human face in order to capture higher degrees of emotion.
The two main techniques are: stationary systems with an array of cameras capturing facial expressions from multiple angles and using software to create a 3D surface mesh, or the use of light arrays to calculate the surface normals from the variance. If the user’s face is fifty-percent of the working area of the camera with megapixel resolution, then sub-millimeter facial motions can be detected by comparing frames.
Recent work is focusing on increasing the frame rates and doing optical flow to allow the motions to be retargeted to other computer generated faces, rather than just making a 3D Mesh of the actor and their expressions. A dancer wearing a suit used in an optical motion capture system The optical systems for motion capturing technologies utilize data captured from image sensors to triangulate the 3D position of a subject between one or more cameras that are calibrated to provide overlapping projections. Reflective markers attached to skin to identify bony landmarks and the 3D motion of body segments A dancer wearing a suit used in an optical motion capture system Most films that involve CGI are based on animal characters, monsters, machines, or cartoon-like humans. Animators are now in pursuit of ways to develop realistic-looking humans. However, due to the complexity of human body functions, emotions, and interactions, this method of animation is rarely used.
The more realistic a CG character becomes, the more difficult it is to create the nuances and details of a living person. The creation of hair and clothing that move convincingly with the animated human character is another area of difficulty. The use of humanoid creatures in CGI has become even more prevalent.
CGI has opened up a world of possibilities that previously only existed in the imaginations of filmmakers and animators. Filmmakers, writers, and producers are able to stretch their imagination of storytelling to new levels, while actors are given the opportunity to represent many different characters within one film. James Cameron James Cameron has had a deep and significant impact on the film community from a cinematic and technological perspective. From his 1 st success, The Terminator, to his recent blockbuster, Avatar, he has continually pushed the envelope of filmmaking and the technology surrounding it.
The Terminator and Terminator 2 marked the grounds for Cameron’s obsession with utilizing the latest film techniques and technologies. He incorporated the advanced model Terminator into both films, where he used cutting edge special effects from The Abyss to depict the liquid metal villain. In The Abyss he utilized several special effects divisions with motion control experience, which designed a program to produce surface waves of differing sizes and kinetic properties for the pseudopod.
Cameron photographed the set from every angle and digitally recreated it so that the pseudopod could be accurately composited into the live-action footage. They spent six months to create seventy-five seconds of computer graphics needed for the creature. Filming of the Abyss James Cameron has been most regarded for his production of the Titanic, where he pushed the industry’s boundaries for special effects. He utilized technologies that added digital water and smoke. Extras were captured on a motion-capture stage and the visual effects supervisor Rob Legato scanned the faces of many actors in order to digitally create them as extras. Titanic Green Screen Vincent Pace and James Cameron developed a filming rig that is more advanced than anything that has gone before. The setup consists of a number of stereoscopic cameras that each use a pair of lenses built to mimic human eyes. The cameras are positioned close together and able to move a little in order to focus on objects that are nearby or far away.
This technique allows the cinematographer to capture two images simultaneously, which align perfectly together and provide the illusion of depth. This was known as the Fusion Camera System or the Reality Camera System. The Fusion Camera System was the first to make use of the Sony HDC-F950 and later of the Sony HDC-1500 HD cameras when they became available.
The cameras are equipped with Fujinon lenses from Fujifilm. Fusion 3-D Camera System The Fusion 3-D camera system that Cameron helped pioneer was used for his IMAX feature Ghost of the Abyss in 2003, and has gone on to making live-action digital 3D films like Journey to the Center of the Earth, Cameron has won plenty of awards including, but not limited to, Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, Honorary Degree of Doctor from University of Southhampton for his contribution to underwater filming and remote vehicle technology, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Visual Effects Society.
James Cameron’s Avatar James Cameron’s Avatar was filmed in photo-realistic, “stereoscopic 3D,” which mixes live-action and CGI imagery in a seamless blend. Avatar utilizes 60% CGI imagery, with a majority of the CG character animation filmed with revolutionary new motion-capture techniques using live actors.
The other 40% of the film utilizes the traditional techniques of live-action imagery. James Cameron began to work on Avatar since the early 1990s. He delayed the film for several reasons, the primary reason being that the film’s technology was not adequate enough to support the vision of the film.
At the time, Cameron wanted to make use of photorealistic computer generated characters with newly developed technologies. Finally, in 2006, he was able to develop new motion-capture animation technologies in order to bring his vision to reality. To bring the CG characters to life in the most realistic sense, Cameron redefined the way motion capture (or “performance capture”) sequences were filmed.
His actors wore special bodysuits and head rigs equipped with a standard definition camera that took constant images of their faces. That data was then transmitted to another camera creating a real-time image of the live actor “wearing” their CGI costume. Zoe Saldana as Neyteri in “Avatar” “The way we developed the performance capture workflow on ‘Avatar’ is we have our virtual camera, which allows me to, in real time, hold a camera — it’s really a monitor — in my hands and point it at the actors and see them as their CG characters,” Cameron said “It’s this amazing ability to quickly conjure scenes and images and great fantasyscapes that is very visualWhen you are doing performance capture, creatively it’s very daunting. James Cameron utilized another new motion capture technique called “Facial Performance Replacement” (FPR). FPR allows the filmmaker to digitally re-work an actor’s facial movements. Lines of dialogue that get changed after principal photography on a scene can still be seamlessly implemented into the finished scene, without the actors having to re-don their body suits and head rigs for another take.
- To achieve the face capturing, actors wore individually made skull-caps fitted with a tiny camera positioned in front of the actors’ faces.
- The information collected from their facial expressions and eyes was then transmitted to computers.
- According to Cameron, the method allowed the filmmakers to transfer 100% of the actors’ physical performances to their digital counterparts.
Besides the performance-capture data which was transferred directly to the computers, numerous reference cameras gave the digital artists multiple angles of each performance. Facial Performance Replacement “We turned the set on the soundstage into a capture volume and turned the physical camera into a capture virtual camera, so we were able to integrate CG characters and environments into our live action.” “We have people in flying vehicles, and I can see what is outside the window, fed in, in real time.” Cameron pioneered a specially designed camera built into a 6-inch boom that allowed the facial expressions of the actors to be captured and digitally recorded for the animators to use later. Cameron pioneered a specially designed camera built into a 6-inch boom that allowed the facial expressions of the actors to be captured and digitally recorded for the animators to use later The rendering and processing of the scenes required a massive amount of data, which resulted in Cameron employing 900 people to work on the film.
Microsoft created a new Cloud Computing and Digital Asset Management system called Gaia, which allowed the crews to keep track of and coordinate all stages in digital processing. A 10,000 square-feet server farm with 35,000 processor cores and 3 petabytes of network area storage was used to render the data.
The render farm occupied the 193rd to 197th spots in the TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Cameron had a new texturing and paint software system developed in order to handle the creation of the Na’vi characters and the virtual world of Pandora, which required over a petabyte of digital storage.
Each minute of the final footage of Avatar occupies 17+ gigabytes of storage. James Cameron provided an amazing display of cinematic effect where the interplay between what is real and what is digital is virtually indistinguishable, all thanks to CGI technologies. In addition to inventing a few new filming techniques for Avatar, Cameron originated a technique for re-mastering old films and releasing them in digital 3D.
The “Cameron-brand conversion technique” will have a huge impact on the movie business, potentially reviving a lot of older films. Cameron spent an extraordinary amount of time working on Avatar, The initial budget was claimed to be 10M USD funded by 20 th Century Fox but the budget exploded to 237M USD by the time it was finished.
- The film spoke for itself in the box office when it grossed $2.7B USD and received phenomenal reviews.
- Avatar went on to receive nine Oscar nominations and three wins – an unusual feat for a science fiction film – and continued to break records on its home release.
- James Cameron’s Avatar showcases a mosaic of cutting edge film, special effects, and animation techniques that allow it to magnanimously leap over the current state of animation in the Film Industry.
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Why does Avatar look so good?
How ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ Solved the Problem of Computer-Generated H2O Nearly all of the sea shots in the blockbuster are digital. But making them seem real via performance capture led to a milestone in the technique. Tuk (Trinity Bliss) in “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which used advances in performance capture for many of the underwater scenes. Credit.20th Century Studios For the the writer-director James Cameron made extensive use of cutting-edge performance capture technology.
It enabled his human cast to portray the 10-foot-tall, pointy-eared, blue-skinned aliens called the Na’vi, the inhabitants of a jungle moon named Pandora. These were groundbreaking visual effects in a filmmaking career with no shortage of them, from the shimmering water-tentacle in “The Abyss” to the shape-shifting liquid metal assassin of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and a largely computer-generated ship, populated by computer-generated passengers, in “Titanic.” With his long-awaited Cameron set about exploring more of Pandora.
The screenplay, which he wrote with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, described many scenes in the water and underwater with a semiaquatic Na’vi clan called the Metkayina. When it came to realizing those watery scenes, there would be none of the usual Hollywood “dry-for-wet” performance-capture techniques: actors dangling from wires, feigning weightlessness, making vague swimming motions in the air.
According to members of Cameron’s crew, the director insisted on “wet-for-wet.” “It’s about the credibility of the actor’s performance,” said Richie Baneham, a visual effects supervisor with Cameron’s production company Lightstorm Entertainment. “If an actor is genuinely in water, there’s a viscous resistance.
It informs the actor’s choices. That’s what we’re chasing. That’s what makes it feel real.” A tank was built that could simulate waves and currents, as requested by James Cameron, foreground. Credit.20th Century Studios “Avatar: The Way of Water,” opening Friday, represents a new milestone in the evolution of visual effects technology: underwater performance capture.
- After some crude tests — the first experiments took place in the backyard pool of an “Avatar” producer, Jon Landau — a performance capture tank was constructed at Lightstorm Entertainment’s facility in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
- The tank was 32 feet deep and held around 90,000 gallons.
- By contrast, the seawater tank constructed for “Titanic” contained 17 million gallons.) Along with viewing platforms on the deck, there were windows in the pool walls for camera operators to shoot through, giving the place the look and feel of a laboratory aquarium.
At Cameron’s behest, the tank simulated waves and currents, too. “Oh, God,” Baneham recalls saying to his colleagues, “it just got more complicated, lads.” One of the main difficulties the crew faced was preventing overhead studio lights from interfering with performance-capture data.
For this, Cameron suggested spreading a layer of small polymer balls across the water line, thereby diffusing the light in the tank while allowing actors to surface safely. He had used the basic technique to simulate dark oceanic depths in “The Abyss.” Something else that would have inconveniently disrupted the performance capture: actors with their pesky respiratory needs.
Cast members held their breath, not just during takes but in the moments leading up to a take. On top of getting their scuba certification, they trained with a freediving instructor,, Kate Winslet proudly holds the cast freediving record: seven minutes and 14 seconds.
For the occasional propulsive boost in the water, performers wore jetpack-like devices. There were safety divers on hand, and hot tubs for the actors between takes. The main cast also share their scenes with professional underwater dancers and gymnasts. Reams of performance-capture data were gathered this way.
For the next step in the process, that data was shared with the artists at Weta FX, the visual effects company that Peter Jackson co-founded in Wellington, New Zealand. Actors, dancers and gymnasts were filmed underwater to create reams of performance-capture data.
- Credit.20th Century Studios It’s the artists at Weta who transformed the wetsuited performers into the Na’vi.
- They also created the lushly detailed digital environments, transporting the action from a chlorinated tank to an enchanting underwater realm, replete with flora and fauna.
- According to Weta, 57 new species of sea creatures were created for the film.
Weta artists also consulted with researchers at Victoria University of Wellington about coral reef biology. “We don’t get a free trip to the Bahamas,” a Weta effects supervisor, Joe Letteri, joked. “Avatar: The Way of Water” is the biggest visual effects project the company has ever taken on.
Only two shots in the entire film contain no visual effects. Despite all those long skin-pruning sessions in the tank and the vast quantities of water in the sequel, nearly all of the water in the film is computer-generated. Of the 3,240 visual effects shots Weta worked on, 2,225 involved water. To bring Pandora to life, the team at Weta had to become expert not only in hydrodynamics, but also in rendering those complex physics photorealistically.
The way water splashes, sloshes, sprays and saturates — in the parlance of the industry — had to be “solved.” “There were something like 1,600 different major effects simulations,” said Eric Saindon, another effects supervisor at Weta. “The proper flow of waves on the ocean, waves interacting with characters, waves interacting with environments, the thin film of water that runs down the skin, the way hair behaves when it’s wet, the index of refraction of light underwater.
We wanted to make it all physically accurate.” As part of their research, the team shot hundreds of hours of reference footage: wind ripples on the surface of water, waves hitting rocks, the movement of seaweed. Saindon enlisted a friend to get dunked on camera so that the team could study the effects of water on curly hair.
“Our pool was not the warmest thing in the world. I don’t think she’d do it again for us,” he said. Cameron himself provided reference material from his own deep-sea dives. Some 57 new animal species were created for the film, including a huge whalelike creature.
Credit.20th Century Studios Weta pioneered ways to make things look wetter, recently filing a patent application for “methods of generating visual representations of a collision between an object and a fluid.” This innovation was especially useful in one sequence where a human character, named Spider, emerges onto some rocks by a group of Na’vi, dripping with water.
The shots blend live-action footage of the actor Jack Champion, who was filmed in a wave pool, with the CG Na’vi. As Saindon pointed out, the simulated water on the Na’vi had to look just as convincing as the actual water on the human character “because you’re comparing it to a live-action element in the same shot.
- And we don’t want you thinking about that.” Considerable horsepower is required, too.
- For that scene alone, it took two weeks for Weta’s systems to simulate just the movement of the water.
- That’s before the millions of processor hours required to render the graphics.
- The total amount of data stored for this film was 18.5 petabytes, while “Avatar” required one petabyte.) Another sequence features boats crashing through entirely simulated waves.
“Everyone will just assume we were out on the open ocean,” Saindon said. While the results are in a sense spectacular, the point of this kind of painstaking work is not to draw attention to itself. “It’s not about crazy moments that yell out ‘visual effects.’ These are just effects that make the film work,” he said.
Is Avatar CGI or makeup?
James Cameron has explained the importance of using CGI technology in the making of the ‘Avatar’ sequel, claiming he would not use anything else. A new featurette for Avatar: The Way of Water has been released. The video, ‘Acting in the Volume’, showcases how the movie was made using CGI technology, with director James Cameron revealing that it was “the only way” to make the film. In the featurette, Cameron explains the importance of using CG in the making of the Avatar sequel.
“There are different ways to make films that have CG characters. What we’re interested in with performance capture is the totality of the performance. Physical, emotional, facial, the eyes—everything,” he says. “The actor creates the emotion. The actor creates the moment. It’s our job to make sure everything the actor did is preserved in their CG character.” Later in the video, the director admitted that he would not have used anything but CGI (computer-generated imagery) technology to make the film as it allowed him to focus on the actors without distraction.
“I’m much more attuned to the actors because that’s all I’m worried about. I’m not distracted by the camera move or the extras in the background. I’m just there for them. That’s all I care about,” he said. Due to the nature of the film, CG technology was the “only way” to create the world of Pandora, with improvements in the technology allowing the sequel to be better than the original 2009 film.
In making a movie set on Pandora, Pandora doesn’t exist. Avatars don’t exist at nine foot tall,” producer Jon Landau said, explaining how the technology works. “We have actors working in a volume with markers on their body, facial head rigs on their head, and we capture a hundred per cent of their performance in the digital world.” His explanation was added to by Jamie Flatters (Neteyam), Britain Dalton (Lo’ak), and Bailey Bass (Tsireya), who take viewers through how the suits feel like.
“At the beginning of the day, the first thing we do is get into our capture suit and that is a skin-tight two-piece and it’s totally filled with ping-pong-like balls around us so they can track my arm and then translate that into the virtual world.” Flatters said. Image via 20th Century Studios The actors of Avatar: The Way of Water joined in with Cameron and Landau’s praise of the technology used, with scenes from the film interspersed throughout the featurette. “The amazing thing is the technology gives me that portal to bring my fourteen-year-old self to play this girl,” Sigourney Weaver, who plays Kiri, says.
I have had to work completely differently than I ever had before. And it’s been an amazing experience to go back in time.” Similarly, Kate Winslet, who plays Ronal, has said the technology is “just remarkable to be able to see the movements and performance go straight into the character.” The featurette showcases both the studio space used for the majority of the film as well as some of the scenes from the film alongside the behind-the-scenes performances of the actors, including a scene in which Neytiri ( Zoe Saldaña ) scolds Jake ( Sam Worthington ) for being too harsh on their children.
Set approximately ten years after the events of the original film, the sequel sees Jake Sully, Neytiri, and their young family leave their forest home for an ocean-dwelling in preparation for an oncoming war. The film has already passed the $515 million mark at the box office.
Is Avatar 4 confirmed?
Release – Avatar 4 is scheduled to be released on December 21, 2029, by 20th Century Studios, Like its predecessors, the film was subject to multiple delays (this time it consisted of five delays) since the crew took more time on the writing, pre-production and visual effects process.
- It was originally scheduled to be released in December 2022, but in April 2017, a new release date of December 20, 2024 was announced, with the recurring sequel releasing on December 19, 2025.
- Following the announcement of the three upcoming Star Wars films, in May 2019, the sequels’ release dates were pushed back to two years, with Avatar 4, being scheduled to be released on December 19, 2025.
The release date was again deferred due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in August 2020, a new release of December 18, 2026 was announced. Another delay was announced on June 13, 2023, pushing the film to December 21, 2029. Avatar 4 and its forthcoming sequels will be released in Dolby Vision,
What will Avatar 4 be called?
Avatar: The Tulkun Rider – December 18, 2026 – The second upcoming Avatar movie, Avatar 4, will be shot back-to-back with Avatar 5, and is currently set to release in December 2026. The title for Avatar 4 is Avatar: The Tulkun Rider, Again, a majority of the cast is expected to return for this fourth film.
The Tulkun were first introduced in Avatar: The Way of Water, playing a big role in the sequel with Lo’ak defriending the Paykan, an exiled Tulkun, The title for Avatar 4 could be referring to the Paykan, but there is likely more involved as the Tulkun have a deep connection to the water tribe. This would also track with Cameron’s comments hinting at the Water Tribe’s significance throughout the remaining Avatar movies.
It has also been explained by producer John Landau ( via Bleeding Cool ) that there will be a time jump in Avatar 4 and some parts of the movie being filmed to avoid the young cast aging too quickly. Landau explained, ” The first act, Because truth be told, there’s a time cut after the end of the first act, and we needed to get all the kids before they got older and shoot all that out,” While the time jump doesn’t reveal much about the narrative, those who have read the Avatar 4 script have been blown away.
After complaining about studio notes about the first two movies, Cameron noted, ” When I turned in the script for 4, the studio executive, creative executive over the films wrote me an email that said, ‘Holy f***.’ And I said, ‘Well, where are the notes?’ And she said, ‘Those are the notes,'” (via Collider ).
Though just as excited, Weaver was a little more modest about the Avatar 4 script, noting, ” I have read 4. It’s an incredible story – everyone should hold on to their hats (via USA Today ).
How much of Avatar 2 is CGI?
The original film was around 70 to 75% computer generated but for this sequel that percentage is said to be 90%. – “We wanted to capture more nuanced, high-fidelity performances, to realise them in even greater photo-reality than we did on the first movie,” says Landau.
That was an approach that involved a lot of people. It wasn’t just Wētā effects. It wasn’t just people on the production. It was those two working together to create more captivating characters on the screen. We were very focused on creating an actor-director-centric process.” Using performance-capture stages in Los Angeles, in September 2017, Cameron began directing his actors before any live-action scenes were shot, capturing as many as 23 members of the cast simultaneously for particular sequences.
The original film was around 70-75% computer generated but for this sequel that percentage is said to be 90%. If a Na’vi character was interacting with a human character in a scene – like for example, Miles “Spider” Socorro (Jake Champion), the human boy who lives with Jake (now a fully-embodied Na’vi) and Neytiri – the latter actor would be on set to perform with the performance-capture stars.
Jack Champion played all of those scenes that you see him in twice,” says Landau. “He played them once when we were capturing Sigourney, Stephen, Sam, Zoe and the kids. We weren’t capturing his performance but he was there for them to react to and then to act with. Then, a year and a half later, we brought Jack to New Zealand, had him do the live-action portion of that shot.” The live-action sets were constructed in studios between the city of Wellington and the rural town of Kumeu, with production kicking off in 2019.
But rather than relying on a tennis ball on a stick to provide an eyeline guidance for Champion and other actors to perform opposite, in lieu of castmates playing digitally-rendered characters, they created a cable system “like you might see at a sporting event, over the stadium with a camera attached,” says Landau. Given the new Avatar is largely water-based, the production team had to conceive all-new tricks to make the aquatic scenes look and feel realistic (Credit: Alamy) The biggest challenge is in the title: The Way of Water. The storyline sees Jake and his family targeted by human colonisers, who want to make Pandora the new home for Earth’s populations, so they flee their forest-based home and seek refuge with an ocean community of amphibious Na’vi, known as Metkayina.
- This means the vast majority of the film takes place in, under or around water, which involves a new level of environmental and technological understanding.
- Light travels differently underwater,” says Landau.
- So we needed to create a whole different capture system to work with the reflective markers and a different system above the water, and for those to work together.” During pre-production, a research trip to the Bahamas gave the camera operators and digital engineers the chance to dive into these uncharted waters of CGI.
“We had people go underwater on SEABOB water sleds that were propelling them at the same speed as the Ilu would,” says Landau. “How does their face ripple? What is the water impact on their face when they come out of the water? We put them in wigs so that when they were underwater and going at a certain speed, we could see how their hair moved.
Even the bubbles when someone dives in the water: what do those bubbles look like around them? And that’s not something you can do without an artist’s eye to figure that out.” The actors were flown to Hawaii to take part in a breath hold training camp so they could shoot as much as possible of the underwater scenes in actual water tanks (rather than using CGI to create the illusion of being in water) with a “sense memory” of what it was like in the ocean.
“They’re wearing the suits with the markers and they have head rigs on their faces, and we’re capturing their performances underwater,” explains Landau. “All the crew who were in the tanks with them also had a breath hold because we couldn’t have the bubbles in the tank.” Kate Winslet held the record in the cast for holding her breath for just over seven minutes though that was not while exerting herself in scenes.
Will there be a Avatar 7?
Avatar: The Way of Water is in theaters Dec.16 Published on November 30, 2022 05:36PM EST Photo: Gabriel Olsen/Getty; Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation/Kobal/Shutterstock Avatar director James Cameron has big plans for the future of his beloved franchise.
- After Avatar: The Way of Water hits theaters next month, three more Avatar films are already slated to release in 2024, 2026 and 2028 respectively.
- If given his way, Cameron would keep the cameras rolling in Pandora for even longer.
- In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the director said he already has plans for the future of the Avatar universe beyond the confirmed releases.
Specifically, he said that he has five or six more films in him — three of which will likely be Avatar movies. The 68-year old director also revealed that he has Avatar 6 and 7 mapped out already, adding that he’d be “89 by then.” “Obviously, I’m not going to be able to make Avatar movies indefinitely,” Cameron told the outlet, citing the “amount of energy required.” To continue his legacy and the story of the Na’vi, the Terminator director said that he “would have to train somebody”: “I don’t care how smart you are as a director, you don’t know how to do this.” When asked if he sees Avatar moving into streaming in the future, Cameron said, “The problem with these CG characters is that they’re so cost- and labor-intensive that it really doesn’t work for TV.” The Titanic director made headlines earlier this year for his thoughts on streaming.
Cameron clapped back at criticism of The Way of Water ‘s over three-hour runtime — half an hour longer than its 2009 predecessor — telling Empire that he doesn’t “want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch for eight hours.” “It’s like, give me a f- break,” he said in the July interview.
“I’ve watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row.” The long-awaited sequel will follow the original film’s main characters, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), as they embark on a new adventure: parenthood. Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang will also reprise their roles in the film, alongside Avatar newcomers Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Michelle Yeoh, Edie Falco, Joel David Moore and CCH Pounder.
What will Avatar 5 be about?
Disney’s pushback of Avatar 5’s release date means that legendary filmmaker James Cameron will be working well past his retirement age. The new release date for Avatar 5 proves just how ridiculous James Cameron is. The fourth Avatar sequel was previously set to release in 2028, but a revised rollout approach from Disney and director James Cameron will extend the Avatar franchise into the 2030s.
- Cameron’s original Avatar, the highest-grossing movie of all time, premiered back in 2009 with its first sequel Avatar: The Way of Water released in 2022.
- Avatar 5 could potentially end the franchise, but Cameron’s passion for directing indicates that there is much more to come from the enigmatic director.
Disney announced delays for Avatar 3, 4, and 5 as well as several upcoming Marvel and Star Wars projects. Avatar 5 is expected to change the Na’vi’s perspective of Earth and humanity, specifically Neytiri, and will be set in a future timeline from the original trilogy.
Is Avatar 3 4 5 already made?
When will Avatar 3 come out? – The new Avatar 3 release date is now set for December 19, 2025. It was originally set for December 20, 2024. Meanwhile, Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 will now release on December 21, 2029, and December 19, 2031, respectively. They were initially set for December 18, 2026, and December 22, 2028, so those delays are both three years.
The most recent Avatar movie was The Way of Water, which came out last year. “Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, Avatar: The Way of Water begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure,” says the official synopsis for the movie.
Avatar: The Way of Water was directed and co-written by James Cameron. It features the return of Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, Stephen Lang, Matt Gerald, and Sigourney Weaver. Additional cast members include Kate Winslet, Edie Falco, Michelle Yeoh, Jemaine Clement, and Oona Chaplin, alongside a slate of young actors.
When did Avatar 2 start filming?
Just How Long Did It Actually Take to Film ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’? > > Since the first Avatar came out back in 2009, just how long did it take to film, ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’? Here’s what we know. By Dec.16 2022, Published 6:56 p.m. ET Source: 20th Century Studios Remember the world back in 2009? Yeah, us neither. One notable event that occurred before the onset of the 2010s was the premiere of the epic film Avatar, Whether you loved or hated the movie, nobody could deny that the film made an impact on the moviemaking industry. Source: 20th Century Studios Article continues below advertisement According to an extensive report, James started planning the sequels he had in mind for the Avatar franchise in 2012. He ended up writing four films’ worth of stories over the span of four years, with the additional help of a writers room he assembled in 2013.
- Filming on Avatar 2 officially began in 2017.
- You read that right.
- It took five years to film Avatar 2,
- The same report from Time notes that Cameron truly delved his Avatar actors into the world of the story, quite literally.
- Most of the cast had to film underwater sequences in a 900,000-gallon tank built specifically for the film.
Kate Winslet reportedly broke the onset record for the Avatar 2 star who could hold their breath the longest underwater — she could supposedly hold her breath for seven minutes! Article continues below advertisement The final cut of Avatar: The Way of Water is three hours and 12 minutes long.
According to, the cast actually trained with a diving instructor who taught Navy SEALS how to hold their breath to prep for filming. Avatar 2 star (who reprised her Avatar role as Neytiri, Jake’s now wife), told Vogue “We studied theory and had to do these breathing exercises, so that by the time you’re ready to go and dive, you have enough oxygen in your bloodstream.” Article continues below advertisement Zoe added, “You’re training yourself to let go of that panic when you go underwater.
And once you put that into practice, it’s kind of liberating.” James actually filmed Avatar 2 and a hitherto untitled Avatar 3 project simultaneously, which was another reason why it took so long for Avatar 2 to hit theaters. Article continues below advertisement Two of the primary filming locations for Avatar: The Way of Water included Manhattan Beach, Calif., and Wellington, New Zealand ( actually has the latitude and longitude specifications for all of Avatar 2’s filming locations!).
Why did Avatar 2 take so many years?
Avatar: The Way of Water was a notoriously delayed project. Writer-director James Cameron first announced the sequel to his 2009 hit Avatar in 2010, with a goal of releasing it in 2014 and following up with a third Avatar movie in 2015. But every time the release date got close, Cameron would announce a new delay, postponing the releases by another year — or several,
And all that release-calendar jumping was before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down production and made long movie delays and schedule shuffles commonplace, The reasons cited for the delays have often been vague. Cameron has talked about the “logistical and technical elements” involved in making several movies back to back, particularly after the announcement that two more sequels would follow Avatar 3, for a total of five movies.
And the complexities of shooting Avatar: The Way of Water, as seen in early behind-the-scenes footage, suggest unusual levels of production difficulty on the film. But in a recent interview with Polygon, Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water producer Jon Landau says that the production and release delays weren’t primarily driven by the stakes of bringing aquatic Na’vi and their detailed whale friends to life.
- We did not have to hold here for technology,” he said.
- I think the first Avatar proved to us that we could be the impetus to push technology to where we needed to go.” Instead, he says, the delays came because the filmmaking team was determined to get the scripts for all four planned Avatar sequels written and finalized before shooting on Avatar 2 even started.
“We felt that this project was about getting the story right,” he said. “You would never build a house until you had the blueprint to build from. The scripts are that blueprint. So we wanted to wait to all four of those were there.” That decision may have been related to the casting of the child actors who serve as primary protagonists in Avatar: The Way of Water, Image: 20th Century Studios It seems likely that Avatar 3 — which was shot back-to-back with The Way of Water — will continue the story threads left open at the end of Avatar 2, and that Avatar 4 will initially continue the kids’ story, then jump forward in time to their adulthood.
- Cameron has confirmed that the “first act” of Avatar 4 has already been shot, even though there’s no guarantee that the story will continue past the third movie,
- Landau teased the reasons: “There were logistic reasons, it turned out, why we needed to shoot not just movie two and movie three, but the first act of part four now.
We couldn’t wait to do it later,” he said. “So we wanted to get that all in place. And then we felt we could be the impetus again to push technology to tell these stories.” Landau confirms that “the Sully kids” will be the throughline for the Avatar films, and the means for introducing new generations to new settings in Pandora, like the coastal area where much of The Way of Water takes place.
- They’re in many ways our entry into this new world of Pandora that we go to,” he said.
- It’s a family story.
- But it’s not just told from the parents’ perspective.
- It’s also told from the kids’ perspective — kids who are struggling to find their place in life.
- One of them feels like an outcast.
- Another one is questioning what her origins are, where she even comes from.
These are things people struggle with today — it makes it relatable. It’s the Sully kids that we go on our first swim experience with, at the reef. We see it through their eyes. And now, as we graduate through the movies, we’re gonna grow up with them as we go on in the saga.” Avatar: The Way of Water is in theaters now.
How long did it take Avatar to make 2 billion?
Key Facts – The Way Of Water has grossed $598 million domestically and $1.426 billion internationally since its December release. The Avatar sequel is the second-fastest film after Avengers: Endgame to breach the $2 billion landmark, achieving the feat in just 39 days—a full six days earlier than the original Avatar, which was previously the second-fastest to the milestone.
What movie took the longest to make?
The Other Side of the Wind holds the record for a movie to be in production for the longest time: it was in production stage for 48 years (1970–2018).