After nearly a decade it looks like the Avatar sequels that James Cameron promised may finally actually be happening, but while we don't know exactly what they'll bring, we know one thing they won't. If you were hoping that a future Avatar movie might give a glimpse of some other part of the galaxy, it doesn't appear that's going to happen. Jon Landau, the producer of the Avatar franchise alongside Cameron, says that there's no need for the story to go any place other than Pandora because anything the story requires can be provided by the planet. According to Landau...
As we've moved on with the sequels to Avatar, we made a very conscious decision to stage the whole four sequels on Pandora. We don't need to go to another world if we want water, we're going to go to the oceans of Pandora. Just like you see in Flight of Passage. Also, some of those creatures that you see (on Flight of Passage), don't be surprised if they show up in the films.
Jon Landau spoke to Inside the Magic at an event regarding Disney's Animal Kingdom's newest land, Pandora - World of Avatar, which recreates the world of the Avatar film, including a pair of major attractions. The Flight of Passage ride is a combination of 3D film and motion simulator ride that puts you on the back of a banshee, but it seems also reveals some potential new creatures that will be seen in future Avatar films.
It's common in the science fiction films to see alien worlds that only have one sort of environment. However, Pandora will be much more like our own planet as it will contain different sorts of environments and different sorts of people that live in those environments. According to Landau, the first movie gave us a very small taste of Pandora as a whole.
We're going to go to totally different environments, we're going to meet different cultures. Just like our planet is as diverse culturally as we are environmentally. We want to introduce people to different cultures. In the first movie, we only met the Omaticaya clan, and they are the clan here allowing us to come to the Valley of Mo'ara. But as we venture out we're going to different environments and different clans.
Currently, production work is being done on the next two Avatar films simultaneously, although we don't know much beyond the fact that Avatar 2 will largely focus on the waters of Pandora, and the specific clan that resides there. It seems quite likely that each successive sequel, there are four currently planned, will introduce a new part of Pandora and a new culture that calls it home.
The next Avatar film is scheduled for release in December of 2020 so we still have quite some time before we'll see any more of Avatar.
