James Cameron admits there's no guarantees that the fourth and fifth 'Avatar' movies will ever come to fruition.
James Cameron
The Academy Award-winning director helmed the hugely successful original movie in 2009, but ahead of the release of the second sci-fi film in 2020, James has admitted that the success of the upcoming films will determine whether the scheduled release of the fourth and fifth movies will reach cinema screens.
He told Vanity Fair magazine: "Let's face it, if 'Avatar 2' and '3' don't make enough money, there's not going to be a '4' and '5'.
"They're fully encapsulated stories in and of themselves. It builds across the five films to a greater kind of meta narrative, but they're fully formed films in their own right, unlike, say, 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy, where you really just had to sort of go, 'Oh, s**t, all right, well I guess I better come back next year.' Even though that all worked and everybody did."
Fans of the original movie have already waited almost a decade for the release of another 'Avatar' film.
But James recently revealed that his desire to use underwater motion-capture technology to make the new films has slowed the production process.
He explained: "It's never been done before and it's very tricky because our motion capture system, like most motion capture systems, is what they call optical base, meaning that it uses markers that are photographed with hundreds of cameras.
"The problem with water is not the underwater part, but the interface between the air and the water, which forms a moving mirror. That moving mirror reflects all the dots and markers, and it creates a bunch of false markers.
"It's a little bit like a fighter plane dumping a bunch of chaff to confuse the radar system of a missile. It creates thousands of false targets, so we've had to figure out how to get around that problem, which we did."
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