While numerous projects have all shut down production, including Disney Pictures various films, one major tentpole is only partway shutting down – the “Avatar” sequels.
Producer Jon Landau has confirmed to The New Zealand Herald that James Cameron’s long in the works follow-ups to his 2009 box-office juggernaut has temporarily shut down production. A new block of filming was to get underway in New Zealand shortly with American cast and personnel flying in but that’s on hold for now.
Weta’s work on the films’ visual effects and post-production elements will still push through though:
“We’ve delayed it. We had plans to come down Friday night with a group of people and start back up and we made the decision to hold off and continue working here [Los Angeles], and come down there a little bit later than we’d planned.
If I told you we are going to know something in two weeks I’d be lying. I might not be wrong – even a broken clock is right twice a day. But I would be lying because I don’t know… We’re in the midst of a global crisis and this is not about the film industry. I think everybody needs to do now whatever we can do, as we say here, to flatten the [coronavirus] curve.”
New Zealand has enforced mandatory two weeks of self-quarantine for all arrivals and got in early with some of the widest-ranging and toughest border restrictions of any country in the world – which has mostly spared the country which has had only 11 cases of the disease to date.
The cast of the franchise includes returnees like Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, Stephen Lang, Matt Gerald, and Sigourney Weaver along with new to the series Kate Winslet, Edie Falco, Michelle Yeoh, Vin Diesel, Jemaine Clement, and Oona Chaplin.
“Avatar 2” remains on track for a December 17th 2021 release with the third coming December 22nd 2023.
