Currently playing in theatres, James Cameron’s ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ has made more than $500 million in less than a week. There will be at least three more sequels after this 2009 science fiction blockbuster. Interestingly, Cameron has already begun filming the first act of the fourth movie, while the third movie has already been completed.
Simultaneous filming of multiple movies is nothing unusual. But Cameron’s decision was motivated by a very clear consideration. Many younger characters were introduced in ‘The Way of Water’ as the offspring of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana).
Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Sigourney Weaver, Jack Champion, James Flatters, and Britain Dalton play the roles of Sully’s true-born and adopted children. Apart from Weaver, who is 73, Cameron was apprehensive that the kids would grow up too fast, and would eventually outgrow the story if the production took too long.
Calling it the ‘Stranger Things’ effect, Cameron told Entertainment Weekly, ‘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. Jack Champion shot up like a weed when we were with him. We shot with Jack when he was 14 and 15, almost up to 16. So we were shooting him over an 18-month period.’
He added, ‘I was imagining scenarios where we don’t go back to work for a year and a half, and we’re completely screwed because he’s aged out, and then we have to go back and reshoot with another guy. It was like, ‘Just hand me the shotgun.’ But fortunately, it didn’t work out that way. We were able to appeal to the New Zealand government to let in a small group of our key actors so that we could bring the production back.’
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