‘Avatar’ producer says Na’vi will visit Earth in fifth movie
The long-awaited sequel to James Cameron’s Avatar, released in 2009, is due to hit theatres and the box office this Friday. Avatar: The Way of Water will expand on the previous film’s story of postcolonial ideas as humans return to Pandora to harvest its sacred land. Hero Jake Sully, who now has a family with love interest Neytiri, is forced to leave his home to keep his family safe. Cameron has confirmed Avatar: The Way of Water will be the second film in his expanding Avatar franchise, with sequels arranged for 2024, 2026 and even 2028. Now, producer Jon Landau has revealed that the fifth film will see the Na’vi travel to planet Earth.
“Well, it’s funny, I wasn’t going to talk about it, but I’ve now subsequently heard that Jim has talked about it a little bit,” Landau shared with Gizmodo. “In [Avatar 5], there is a section of the story where we go to Earth. And we go to it to open people’s eyes, open Neytiri’s eyes, to what exists on Earth.”
The producer added further details concerning what is going on in Avatar’s version of Earth, as the 2009 film implied it had been worn down and destroyed by humanity’s greed and ignorance. He also specified how Neytiri, who has a strong connection with her planet’s wildlife, will be a focus perspective in this elevation of the story world. “Earth is not just represented by the RDA [the franchise’s evil organisation known as the Resources Development Administration],” he said. “Just like you’re defined by the choices you make in life, not all humans are bad. Not all Na’vi are good. And that’s the case here on Earth. And we want to expose Neytiri to that.”
Landau also shared how he and Cameron are always thinking about the next step in writing and making these sci-f blockbusters, with the second one looking to be one of the most expensive films ever made. “I think right now we want each movie to do exactly what the first movie did,” Landau shared. “We want [audiences] to go, ‘Wow. Where else could they go? They just showed us everything on Pandora.’ Then you go, ‘Holy cow. They’re going to the oceans. Wow. The oceans are amazing.’ Okay, that’s over. Where can it go? Same thing from an emotional story. We end the [first] movie with Jake and this transformation. But we’ve suffered the loss of [Sigourney Weaver’s character] Grace, and we’ve suffered other things. We want people to come out of this movie with an emotional resolution that both calls for a yearning to go back to those characters and to the world.”
During the run-up to the film’s premiere, many film fans insisted that Avatar had no cultural impact. Cameron counteracted these claims of Avatar being a forgotten film, stating: “When you have extraordinary success, you come back within the next three years. That’s just how the industry works. You come back to the well, and you build that cultural impact over time.”
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