While you might think that little could stop James Cameron, but global pandemics will put a dent in the schedule of any filmmaker. Yet the director and his Avatar sequel team are now back working in New Zealand on the live-action portions of the new movies, and producer Jon Landau has shared a few small details about what we can expect from the story.
While most of it was fairly well known already – the team has shared casting for Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri's (Zoe Saldana) family in the past, and the water aspect has been endlessly reported – Landau still offers a little bit of fresh intel. "This is the story of the Sully family and what one does to keep their family together. Jake and Neytiri have a family in this movie, they are forced to leave their home, they go out and explore the different regions of Pandora, including spending quite a bit of time on the water, around the water, in the water."
Team Avatar might have returned, but the cast and crew still needed to complete a two-week quarantine once they arrived. Still, Landau saw the bright side. "If there's a silver lining to a very, very grey cloud, it's that we live in a day and age where technology allows us to be productive, it allows us to be entertained and it allows us to socialise."
And he also feels happy with the way that New Zealand has dealt with the situation. "We feel very comfortable because of the actions of your government and also the responsibility the people took to really curb the virus there. So we feel we're coming back to the safest place in the world possible thanks to a team of people that we've worked with. We believe we have a very thoughtful, detailed and diligent safety plan that will keep everybody as safe as possible in these unprecedented times."
For more from Landau, head to the Radio New Zealand site. Avatar 2 is currently still scheduled for release on 17 December next year.