Avatar is one of those franchises that has such an epic production that it throws up plenty of anecdotal stories from its stars and director. One such story was recently shared by Zoe Saldaña in an interview with Elle UK, when the actress recounted one particular interaction with James Cameron while working on the original Avatar about her style of running. She told the magazine:
"He takes off his headphones like, 'What is that?' I'm like, 'I was running.' He goes, 'That's not running! You've gotta learn how to run!' I didn't know how to run because I was just busy dancing ballet and dancers don't run because anything that jeopardizes your knees or your ankles, you just don't do."
It seems that Saldaña managed to get her standard of running up to where James Cameron wanted it, as the actress does plenty of it during both Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water. She went on to note that Cameron had encouraged her to “get on a treadmill or something” in order to work on her running, and it seems that she took his advice.
Avatar: The Way of Water Has Become the 6th Fastest Movie to Hit $1 Billion
While Avatar: The Way of Water’s opening domestic weekend box office fell slightly short of expectations, the subsequent week and its international performance have more than made up for it. The film took just 12 days to blast through the $1 billion mark, which is an encouraging sign for all involved in the production of what has become one of the most expensive movies of all time.
With its super-sized budget, Avatar: The Way of Water was estimated to need a similarly eye-watering box office return to turn a profit and that is something that is clearly not a problem for Cameron’s belated sequel. With a long theatrical run to go, it seems impossible to imagine that Avatar: The Way of Water will not overtake Top Gun: Maverick and become the highest-grossing movie of 2022. What all this means for James Cameron is that he is almost guaranteed to be able to deliver his envisioned three further sequels over the next several years.
During a previous interview, James Cameron hinted that the current bi-annual release of Avatar sequels could end up being slightly different in reality. Although much of Avatar 3’s filming has already been completed, when it comes to the next installments, there is still a lot of work to do. Cameron said:
“We know exactly what we're doing. We know what these movies are gonna be. We just have to go through the process of getting them done. So, you know ideally two years from now, [Avatar] 3 comes out. Ideally maybe 3 years after that 4 comes out and then ideally maybe a couple years after that 5 comes out.”
Avatar: The Way of Water is out now in cinemas worldwide.