Avatar 4 director James Cameron has revealed that he’s already shot "several chunks" of the upcoming Avatar sequel.
During an interview with People Magazine, the celebrated filmmaker confirmed that he filmed Avatar 3 and parts of Avatar 4 alongside The Way of Water to ensure characters were the right age.
“We did the [motion capture] capture on three and the live-action photography on three as an intermingled production with [Avatar: The Way of Water], and we even did part of movie four because our young characters are all going to have a big time jump in movie four,” he explained.
What happens during that time is a mystery, however Cameron did expand a little.
“We see them and then we go away for six years and we come back,” he said about Avatar 4’s time jump. “And so the part where we come back is the part we haven’t shot yet. So, we’ll start on that after three is released.”
Presumably, that gives them enough time for the human characters to appropriately age between movies — not such a big deal for their CGI Na’vi costars.
Although certain scenes have already been shot, Cameron still has to tackle the entire rest of the movie, which is still on track for its December 21, 2029 release date. Avatar producer Jon Landau did previously reveal that the scenes he’s finished on Avatar 4 comprise of the film’s first act, stating that it’s already complete.
“We’ve completed most of the first act of Avatar 4 and there were logistical reasons why we needed to do that,” Landau said. Now, it appears that those "logistical reasons" are to do with when the film is set. “We’ve designed most of the whole movie for Avatar 4 but we haven’t actually filmed all of it — just the first act.”
IGN’s Avatar: The Way of Water review gave it 8/10 and said: “Avatar: The Way of Water is a thoughtful, sumptuous return to Pandora, one which fleshes out both the mythology established in the first film and the Sully family’s place therein. It may not be the best sequel James Cameron has ever made (which is a very high bar), but it’s easily the clearest improvement on the film that preceded it.”
Want to read more about Avatar? Check out our first look at Avatar 3 as well as some details from the upcoming Avatar sequel.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
