Avatar Sequels: James Cameron Says Those Weird Titles Are Real; Kate Winslet Held Her Breath Longer Than Tom Cruise; Live-Action Filming Starts This Year
James Cameron is hellbent on making Avatar sequels until the sun burns out in the sky, and day by day, more info on the films arrives. Last year, we learned what the possible titles of the films would be, and the titles...were a bit weird. But as it turns out, they are indeed real – for now, at least. On top of that, it's recently been revealed that cast member Kate Winslet held her breath underwater for a very long time, and that live-action filming on the sequels picks up this spring.
The Seed Bearer Lives!
As you may recall, back in November 2018, we got word of the potential Avatar sequel titles: Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: The Seed Bearer, Avatar: The TulkunRider, and Avatar: The Quest for Eywa. This immediately set off a chain reaction of people saying, "Seriously?" But it turns out they are indeed real! Sort of! While speaking with ET, Avatar mastermind James Cameron confirmed that those titles are indeed being considered, but they could change. "I can neither confirm nor deny," Cameron said, before immediately adding: "All right, here's what I'll tell you. Those titles are among titles that are in consideration. And no final decisions have been made yet." Of all the titles, I hope The Seed Bearer sticks. In fact, that should be in every title. Avatar: The Seed Bearer; Avatar: The Seed Bearer 2, Avatar: The Seed Bearer 3, and so on. Just a suggestion.
Kate Winslet to Tom Cruise: "Ya Basic!"
A big deal was made about the fact that Tom Cruise held his breath underwater for six minutes to film a scene in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. But Kate Winslet just beat his ass. Sorry, Tommy Cruise. According to Avatar franchise producer Jon Landau (via Collider), Winslet managed to hold her breath for seven minutes underwater:
"We built a water tank that was 500,000 gallons of water, and we are doing performance-capture under the water, on the surface of the water, and above the water. We trained our cast to free-breath-hold...So we had a gentleman named Kirk Krack come in and train everybody that needed to be underwater ...Kate Winslet had to train in this and she got up to a static breath hold of just about seven minutes. It's amazing, it's mind over matter. You see Kate going underwater and she just felt so comfortable. There was one day, we have a tank where she was just rehearsing and testing and we have some windows into it, and I go in there and she's just walking on the bottom [of the tank] left and right, left and right, left and right, then she sees me in the window and she just waves."
Too bad you couldn't learn to hold your breath when you and Jack Dawson were floating in the frigid North Atlantic, huh, Kate Winslet? Then he might be alive. Or I guess he'd be dead of old age by now, since that was over 100 years ago. Winslet plays "Ronal, a free-diver of the Metkayina clan" in the films – one of the underwater tribes we'll see in the sequels.
Live-Action Filming Starts in the Spring
While we primarily think of the Avatar films existing in a very digital world, there is some live-action filming. And while the performance capture work on Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 and 4 has wrapped, live-action filming is set to begin this spring in New Zealand, per Collider. These scenes will include the recently cast Edie Falco. "We have completed our principal capture on Avatar 2, 3, and part of 4," said Jon Landau. "We're going to do our live-action filming in New Zealand in the spring of this year. We just announced today that we've cast Edie Falco to play General Ardmore, who is the head of the RDA forces. In typical Jim [Cameron] fashion he finds this powerful woman to play what could be very easily a male role if people were just to read the script."
Avatar 2 opens December 18, 2020; Avatar 3 on December 17, 2021; Avatar 4 on December 20, 2024; and Avatar 5 on December 19, 2025.