AVATAR 2 (2022): James Cameron Says Filming is 100% Complete in Interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger

James Cameron Says Filming on Avatar 2 is 100% Complete

James Cameron told Terminator star and former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger about the continuation of the Avatar franchise during a recent chat at the Austrian World Summit in 2020.

In a video conference from New Zealand, Cameron said: “We’re 100% complete on Avatar 2 and sort of 95% complete on Avatar 3.” He added that the team is currently working on shooting the rest of the live action feature. Cameron explained that production lost “about four and a half months” thanks to COVID-19, which “hit us like it hit everybody, it hit us hard.” In July Disney pushed back all the Avatar sequels, setting the release of Avatar 2 on December 16, 2022 and Avatar 3 on December 20, 2024. The fourth and fifth films are to be released in 2026 and 2028.

Cameron praised New Zealand’s management of the coronavirus outbreak and said, “We’re very lucky in that we chose this as our production site years ago. We made the first film here in New Zealand and it turns out to be ranking first or second best country in the world for its COVID response.” In June, New Zealand announced that it was virus-free, although the August outbreak in Auckland necessitated a new level of alert, which has since been reduced.

Cameron and producer Jon Landau traveled back to New Zealand in June to return to work after the virus halted production in March. He told Schwarzenegger: “We’re able to operate. We’re able to shoot and have a more or less normal life here. We were very fortunate, so I don’t see any roadblocks to us getting the picture finished, getting both pictures finished.” Other than that, Cameron wouldn’t divulge details. “I can’t tell you anything about the story,” he told Schwarzenegger. “I believe in the mystery and the great reveal.”

Cameron and Schwarzenegger spent most of the interview discussing environmental issues. Cameron described his history as an environmentalist, starting “back in high school really, back in Canada, in the sixties” where he developed a great love of nature. Later he describes becoming aware of issues such as “pollution and … deforestation,” which he tracked into his adulthood. He says that “as a diver, I see the degradation of the oceans. I see the degradation of the coral reefs and so on. and that fueled a real interest [in these issues].”

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