James Cameron is a man who takes chances, especially with budgets not made up of his own money, and usually comes out smelling of roses. And it seems his latest gamble with the hugely ambitious and expensive Avatar is no exception.
The live-action/CGI movie is already gaining great reviews and definitely has a chance of making a ton of money, even though it costs a ton to make. Whether it ever reaches the box office levels of Titanic and The Dark Knight isn’t yet clear but it should at least be a success.
Assuming it is, then expect at least one sequel or maybe two. Cameron has these planned in his head and, according to Variety, told the press conference for his remake of Fantastic Voyage how they even formed part of the pitch he made to studio bosses. He explained:
“When I pitched it to Fox, they said, ‘We’ve spent a lot of money creating all these assets, all these CG mountains, plants, trees, leaves, flowers, bugs’ — everything you saw up there on screen had been made by people at workstations over a period of years and so they have value,”
“So in terms of the pitch it was: OK, you’ve spent a lot of money on the first one; on the second one we’ll be able to amortize it and focus on the story and all that … and they bought that.”
Kirsten reported on the possibility of sequels all the way back in September and they seem even more likely now that the film is actually out and doing well. If you’ve seen Avatar then let us know whether you think sequels would be justified or not.
