Before getting to actually filming the four “Avatar” sequels, filmmaker James Cameron and several writers spent years working on the scripts for all of the films.
Those scripts were essentially completed before filming took place, and as we know, Cameron at one point threw out a whole script for the second film which he had been working on for a year.
Now, actor Sam Worthington revealed at the UK press junket for the film this week that Cameron also wrote a whole film script for essentially an “Avatar 1.5” which bridged the gap of the events between the first and second “Avatar” film.
He did this with reportedly no intention of filming it, rather to simply give the actors some backstory details and information to help inform their performances. Worthington tells Collider:
“Jim [Cameron] gave us a script of 1.5 that he wrote that shows the time between Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water, and he wrote a full script. [Cameron said] Look, read this. We’ll fill in the blanks of what Jake’s been doing.’ I said, ‘When do we shoot this one? Because this is amazing.’ He goes, ‘No, no, that’s just something I wrote over the past year to give you his backstory.’”
Worthington said he lent the script to co-star Zoe Saldana, and he thinks she lost it, to which she responded: “No, I have it. I just never returned it. I was like, ‘I’m keeping this.'”
“Avatar: The Way of Water” comes to theaters on December 16th.
