‘Avatar 4′ Announced With New Team of Screenwriters
Yesterday, we reported the news that James Cameron and 20th Century Fox hired 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' writer Josh Friedman to work on the script for 'Avatar 2,' though the studio had no comment. Today, they've not only confirmed Friedman's involvement, they've announced that writers Shane Salerno ('Savages') and the team of Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver ('Rise of the Planet of the Apes') will also be joining the 'Avatar' sequel team. Why so many writers? Because 'Avatar 2,' 'Avatar 3' and 'Avatar 4' will all be filmed simultaneously and that all four writers will assist Cameron in hashing out the three screenplays.
This news, coming at us through a press release, is, for lack of a better word, insane. Major movies have filmed simultaneously with their sequels before (see 'The Lord of the Rings' and two of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movies), but announcing that boatload of writers will work together to write three screenplays, which will be then be filmed and released over the course of three years is pretty nutty. We have no idea what the actual arrangement is going to be, but we can't shake the image of these writers chained to desks in the middle of a room, with Cameron stalking around them, dressed like a lion tamer and brandishing a whip that he isn't afraid to use.
Although we have no official details on what will happen in an 'Avatar' sequel, we now know when they're aiming to arrive. 'Avatar 2' is eyeing a release in December of 2016, 'Avatar 3' in December of 2017 and 'Avatar 4' (which has been rumored to be a prequel) in December of 2018. It's a scheduling move that would seem silly if the first film wasn't the highest grossing film of all time by a fairly significant margin.
In other words, we hope you plan to spend a couple of upcoming holiday seasons in Pandora.