It's been nearly a decade since Avatar was released and became the second of James Cameron's movies to become the highest-grossing movie of all time, and now the sequel has finally began shooting. However, we still have another two years to go until Avatar 2 comes out, and Sigourney Weaver is among the many who wish it would arrive sooner. Weaver has had a blast during the pre-production phase and principal photography so far, learning how to hold her breath for four minutes in order to take part in Avatar 2's numerous underwater scenes. Because she and the rest of the cast and crew have put in so much work into the sequel, she's eager to moviegoers to see the fruits of their labor. As she put it:
There's a whole discipline for how you build up to spending that amount of time underwater. It's really the most fun I've had in a long time. I just wish the movies were coming out sooner, because I feel like the world needs more Avatar as soon as possible.
As part of her Avatar 2 preparation, Sigourney Weaver had to learn how to free dive, and now on top of being able to do that, she's also scuba certified. But when the cameras are rolling, Weaver and her fellow actors have to ditch the breathing apparatus since on Pandora, these characters are just diving in on their own, and ideally they can hold their breath longer than a human can. In any case, Weaver told Yahoo how impressed she's been with James Cameron's "ambitious vision" for Avatar 2's underwater scenes, which haven't been easy to pull off. Cameron recently noted that the Avatar 2 crew only conducted its first successful underwater run early last month, and because of the setting, the performance-capture technology needed to be enhanced in order to capture the actors' movements.
In 2010, a few months after Avatar was released, James Cameron confirmed that sequels were in the works, and that the first of them would likely come out in December 2014. But over the years the Avatar follow-ups have been pushed back multiple times in order for James Cameron to draft out the rest of this saga and to perfect the technology needed to effectively tell these stories on the silver screen. Now Avatar 2 is penciled in for December 2020, and the following three Avatar movies will be released between 2021 and 2025. Many members from the original Avatar cast are returning to reprise their respective roles, although in Weaver's case, she won't be playing Grace Augustine again, but a brand-new character instead. As for newcomers, some of the notable additions include Kate Winslet and Oona Chaplin.
Avatar 2 opens in theaters on December 18, 2020, so stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates on the sequel. To see what movies are coming out over the next year, head to our 2018 premiere guide.
