‘Avatar 2′ Won’t Be Entirely Underwater and Won’t End With a Cliffhanger

%photo13% Even though writer-director James Cameron has yet to sit down and write the screenplay for "Avatar 2" (or "Avatar 3"), the whole world knows that he's planning on making two sequels to his colossal 3D hit. You can't announce that you're working on follow-up films to a movie that made almost $3 billion across the globe and not expect people to be harassing you at all times about what these new movies will be about. Doing a public service, "Avatar" producer Jon Landau offered a few hints about the sequels that don't tell us a lot but will certainly keep us occupied until the next communique from Planet Cameron.

Speaking to Empire about the release of the new extended-edition "Avatar" DVD, Landau added a little more information about what Cameron meant back in April when he said that "Avatar 2" would be "focusing on the oceans on Pandora."

"Water will be a part of the movie, but it won't be all of the movie, " Landau told us. "There's been a lot of rumours that it's an underwater movie -- it's not. Just like the Floating Mountains, and the Na'vi's interaction with the mountains, were a part of Avatar, it'll be the same type of thing."

So those hoping for "Avatar 2: Finding Nemo" will be somewhat disappointed, but the more heartening news from Landau was that "Avatar 2" and "Avatar 3" -- despite being shot back-to-back -- won't be connected by a cliffhanger. "You don't want Avatar 2 to feel like a set up for 3," he told Empire, which makes us very, very happy. As Screen Rant points out, sequels that are filmed in succession (like the "Back to the Future" and "The Matrix" films) tend to be not-so-great. (The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is the exception because, hey, that's the way the books were.)

There are plenty of reasons to wish Cameron would move on to other film projects -- even if you loved "Avatar," are there really a lot of open-ended plot points you'd like to see play out in subsequent films? But it's good to see that at least he's not going to do the standard leave-us-hanging device after "Avatar 2." Then again, even Landau doesn't seem to know everything about these
sequels. Asked by Empire if the first sequel will be entirely on
Pandora, he wasn't sure. "I think the next movie will stay on Pandora,"
he said. "That'd be my guess. Not all the answers are there yet, but I
think we're happy with Pandora." The more important question is whether fans will be happy with Pandora if Cameron doesn't deliver the goods with these sequels. Before "Avatar" came out, there was every reason to think his blue-skinned alien epic with no stars would be utterly terrible. He defied the naysayers once: He may be asking for trouble trying to repeat that film's unlikely success.

Exclusive: Jon Landau Talks Avatar 2 [Empire]
'Avatar' Producer Addresses Sequel Rumors [Screen Rant]
James Cameron: The 'Avatar' sequel will dive into the oceans of Pandora [Hero Complex]