Director James Cameron's long-awaited sequel, Avatar 2, will feature some surprising family drama, with a new image giving us our first look at actor Jack Champion as Spider, a human child who has been adopted by Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña). Emerging from the waters of Pandora, Spider is sure to add a new dynamic to the upcoming sequel as he comes to terms with both his adoptive parents and planet.
The first of several Avatar sequels will pick up some 13 years after the first record-breaking outing, introducing audiences to Jake and Neytiri’s new family. This will include several native Na’vi children, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), and Tuktirey (Trinity Bliss), as well as the human child Miles Socorro, also known as Spider, played by The Night Sitter star Jack Champion. Spider is taken into the brood of Avatar heroes Jake and Neytiri after being born at the now-abandoned military base on Pandora. Too young to be returned to Earth, Jake decides to take the child in as one of their own, much to the chagrin of Neytiri.
“Jake took him in but Neytiri always saw him as one of the people who destroyed her home and killed her father,” producer Jon Landau revealed in a conversation with Empire. “So you have all these dynamics playing out.”
It is this injection of family drama that Landau and director James Cameron hope to use to transform this fantastical world of science fiction into something a little more human. “If you look at what Jim does in his movies, he writes in universal themes that are bigger than the genre of any one movie,” Landau continued. “This time around, we’re taking Jake and Neytiri and building the most universal theme of all around them. Which is family. Jake comes from the human world, Neytiri from the Na’vi world. So, they’re like a modern mixed-race couple, raising kids who perhaps feel they don’t belong to one world or another.”
So, plot details for Avatar 2 are finally being slowly unveiled, with the addition of Spider certainly being an intriguing one. A major story element we have known for the longest time about the return to Pandora is that it will be delving into the deep and exploring the mysterious underwater world of the alien planet. In the past, producer Jon Landau has also revealed that the Avatar sequel will center on "the Sully family and what one does to keep their family together. Jake and Neytiri will 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."
Avatar 2 sees cast members Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, CCH Pounder, and Matt Gerald all reprise their roles from the original movie, with Sigourney Weaver returning in a different, mysterious role. New cast members include the likes of Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Michelle Yeoh, Jemaine Clement, Oona Chaplin, Vin Diesel, and CJ Jones. Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 have now completed principal filming, and are scheduled to be released on December 16, 2022, and December 20, 2024, respectively. Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 meanwhile are scheduled to be released 2026, and 2028.