Actress Kate Winslet has joined the cast of the upcoming James Cameron-directed Avatar sequels, and filming has just wrapped for the second and third installations of the franchise. As free-diver Ronal of the Metkayina tribe on Pandora, Winslet got the opportunity to add an item to the “Special Skills” section on her resume. Now, next to “woman who met her current husband at a house fire,”she can add “woman who can hold her breath for seven whole minutes.” That’s something that would’ve come in handy while she was adding “cruise ship door hog” to her CV.
IndieWire heard from Lightstorm Entertainment producer Jon Landau: “When you’re doing performance capture in a tank, you can’t be in scuba gear because the bubbles will distract,” he says. “Not only that but we can’t record what the mouth would be doing. So we had to teach everybody how to free breath hold.” So they hired world champion free-diver Kirk Krach to train the cast, and Winslet and Sigourney Weaver learned how to hold their breath underwater for seven and four minutes, respectively. Landau adds, “And we did the breath holding … in the open ocean. We also did a night dive with manta rays. And there’s nothing more Pandoran that that experience of seeing these sea creatures that look otherworldly coming out of the dark and swimming by you at night.” I mean, yeah. Obviously. So Pandoran.
Returning for the Avatar sequels are Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, Stephen Lang, Matt Gerald, and Sigourney Weaver. Cliff Curtis and Oona Chaplin have joined the sequels, alongside Winslet. 20th Century Fox and Lightstorm have announced the release date for Avatar 2 as December 18, 2020. Avatar 3 comes to theaters on December 17, 2021, and Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 will be released on December 20, 2024, and December 19, 2025, with Cameron’s caveat that they won’t make 4 and 5 if 2 and 3 aren’t successful.
That being said, the first Avatar film remains the highest-grossing film worldwide, with over $2.7 billion in box office grosses. Titanic was previously the record holder with $2.186 billion worldwide, and both movies are James Cameron joints. So, if you’re hoping to live in an Avatar-free future, don’t hold your breath.
46 Comments
I have absolutely zero interest in seeing any new Avatar movies, however, I’m interested af to see how this will do financially. Cameron knows how to make money though so I’m assuming it’s going to rake in the bucks.
The Avatar phenomenon has to be a Threatin type situation where Cameron himself is buying out theaters.
Well everything except the front rows, they belong to 50 Cent.
Avatar was in 3D and tickets cost ~50% more than the standard 2D prices. So the gross is inflated somewhat.
I don’t know. I suspect my future will be as Avatar-free as my past has been.
But your past and present and future all are all full of Avator comments. Funny that.
When the 1st Avatar came out I was excited to see it, saw it. Thought it was ok, until someone pointed out how it was basically space Pocahontas..
You say that as if it is a bad thing. Space Pocahontas is a great concept.
Someone had to point that out to you?
Space Dances with Wolves, actually.
Or Dances with Space Wolves more accurately.
TANGO FOR RUSS! WATUSI FOR THE ALLFATHER!
Didn’t he refer to her as “Kate Weighsalot” while filming Titanic? I don’t think he was implying that she sank the boat, but still not cool.
I’ve heard conflicting stories…some have said he said that, I’ve read interviews where he says other people called her that but not him, he didn’t think it was cool. So I don’t know. He does seem the type who would say something and then blame it on other people once it got out.
Nope, she didn’t hold her breath for 7 minutes. That would take years of training. Maybe she managed 5, no way she did 7.
Acting!
She’s English, it’s a Metric 7.
Or an Imperial pint.
Thank you. This anecdote is a definite lie, just like any time there is a boxing movie and the trainers say that the star got into such good shape that they could have an actual chance in a real boxing match against a professional boxer.
For my money, Kate Winslet’s single greatest achievement continues to go to “The actress whose life fulfilled an Extras joke” when she finally got her Oscar win for The Reader.
I’ll be seeing part 2 for the technology behind the film, but hopefully the story and characters will surprise me and turn out to be interesting. I’m not holding my breath though (see what I did there?). If that aspect of it ends up sucking, I’m not seeing the 3rd one.
This is a sincere, snark-free comment: What do people think the odds are on the Avatar sequels being successful, critically and/or commercially? There’s usually a “never count out James Cameron” comment on any one of these stories, but I have yet to see anyone show much enthusiasm for these films anywhere. The lack of cultural impact from Avatar is one of the only things anyone ever says about it. Obviously a lot depends on the actual quality of the films, but there’s always the possibility that after all this time, no one cares.My tentative suggestion is that the first sequel will do pretty good business from curiosity if nothing else, and then there’ll be a sharp decline for number three.
But there was a major cultural impact — the stupid Papyrus font that the movies used replaced Comic Sans as the most hated typeface.
It was already close.
Never underestimate the terribleness of Comic Sans.
I remember someone pointing out on another article that the lack of cultural impact also had something to do with how difficult it was to find the movie once it got a DVD release. Didn’t it come with the purchase of some TV or something?
I think they’ll make good money because millions of people go see big movies these days as if they’re legally required to do it. I don’t think, however, that the sequels will make the kind of money they’ll have to make in order to be wildly profitable. God only knows, Cameron is probably aiming to have each one of them to gross more than any movie in history. (I can’t imagine I’ll see any of them, but that’s me.)
If only that phenomenon could be exploited to get people to vote.
My guess is that the second film will at least be given a chance (even by all the most vitriolic critics online), but if it isn’t spectalur — and I do mean *spectacular* — the third will tank and take down 4 and 5 with it.
I think they’re going to be huge steaming piles, do moderately poorly in the US and most of Europe, and break box office records in non-English-speaking parts of the world.
I am genuinely interested in seeing how the Avatar sequels fare. I went to Disney World this year and there were kids walking around the Pandora part of Animal Kingdom that clearly had no idea what Avatar is. It’s weird how such a massively successful film seems to have had so little cultural footprint (I mean, do you ever hear anyone quote a line? talk about particular scenes? dress up as characters even at sci fi conventions?). That being said, the two Avatar rides are super impressive (say what you want about Disney and Cameron, they know their entertainment technology).
(I mean, do you ever hear anyone quote a line?)People probably quote the South Park parody (aka Dances With Smurfs) more than the movie.
To be fair, Transformers makes a lot of money but I similarly have yet to see/hear anyone quote or reference it IRL (except as an example of bad films).
I don’t know. The BIGGEST issue is the huge length of time between Avatar and the sequel. But the truth of the matter, all snark aside, the first one got to where it did more on looks than anything. No one can argue with the fact that it is a BEAUTIFUL movie, the CG in it was unprecedented, and frankly no one came even close to that level until maybe the new Planet of the Apes movies. There was also the addition that the 3d in that movie was supposedly spectacular, never saw it in the theater. The story as many have said was so so, i mean the main driving force was unobtanium (can you be more unoriginal?) But a 13 year gap between movies is massive, since kids who may have been enthralled with the first are now grown and probably not that interested in another. For the new ones to make money he is going to have to pull a rabbit out of a hat like he did on the first and produce something on a level visually, storywise alone wont work, that has never been seen before.
You mean the sequels won’t make money for the studios and their shareholders? Sacre bleu! How is this possible?!!!“Cultural impact” sounds important, but hey, we now have how many Transformers movies (does the upcoming Bumblebee count as one)? There are 24 (and counting) James Bond movies, and the last three were expensive crap.
It’s because he usually manages to show you something you’ve never seen on screen before, tosses in a couple of “holy shit that’s pretty cool” moments, and likewise manages the emotional beats pretty effectively.That’s why people go to his movies in droves. At least I think that’s why.
I think it’s going to be one of those situations where they will bring in billions upon billions internationally.
I would have been fine if there had never been another Avatar film. The first was it’s own self contained story, however derivative it might have been. I wasn’t curious about anything following the ending of that film. The story was told and concluded and I went home unmoved by the plot but certainly dazzled by the presentation.However if I’m going to be honest with myself I probably will see the sequels if he’s going to the trouble of making them for the sake of experiencing the spectacle of it all. I’m not asking for it but I’m sure it will draw me in.
If they want more people to see this movie, they’re going to have to do a lot more…… Pandorin’.
Have you seen the script? Maybe they have a great tail to tell.
Will this much do?
Two words: More pandas!
Avatar gets 4 sequels but we can’t have a Wild Hogs 2?
So an actor can hold her breath two to three times the average of a Navy SEAL, with some summary breathing training? I find that a bit hard to swallow. Add the fact she’s a known smoker, I call bullshit.
Didn’t Winslet say she would never work with Cameron again after her experience on Titanic? And wasn’t it specifically because of the shit he put her through filming in water?
Cameron really does like to try drowning his actors doesn’t he?