Avatar: Fire and Ash is all set to hit cinemas on December 19th, marking the third of a planned five films in James Cameron’s ambitious sci-fi saga.
After the second film got its feet wet, Avatar's third part really promises to turn up the heat. And we’re not just talking about the movie’s estimated $400 million budget, which makes it the most expensive of the trilogy to date.
As the name suggests, this third entry focuses on a fiery new Na’vi tribe, the volcano-dwelling Mangkwan.
While a much swifter follow-up to its predecessor than The Way of Water was to the original (we’re talking three years vs 13 years), this was no small feat to produce. Indeed, Fire and Ash started shooting simultaneously with Avatar: The Way of Water, all the way back in 2017.
Cinema simply doesn’t get any grander than this – even more so if you’re talking about auteur cinema. James Cameron has stewarded this series from the very beginning, writing, producing, and of course directing each of the films.
We’ve already mentioned a couple of interesting facts surrounding this fascinating series. There are plenty more where they came from.
1. The first Avatar was ready to go before Titanic
We all think of Avatar as a distinctly 21st century thing, but its genesis goes back way further. Having dreamed up key scenes while still in his teens, James Cameron finally got around to writing a detailed 80-page treatment for the first film in 1994 – that’s three years before Titanic hit our cinema screens. Two years later, Cameron announced that he would commence filming Avatar as his next project following the famous historical drama. The great director soon realised that his imagination and ambition exceeded the technology of the day, so his plans were put on ice for another decade.
2. Thank Gollum Avatar got made
It was only when James Cameron saw The Lord of the Rings, and specifically the work that Peter Jackson's local special effects team Wētā did with the key character of Gollum, that he realised CGI technology had finally caught up with his initial vision for Avatar. It was the believable rendering of this complex character (as well as the same director’s King Kong) that convinced Cameron to start work on a production that would hinge on a bunch of CGI characters interacting with one another, as well as with live actors.
3. Zoe Saldana is seriously committed to her role
Zoe Saldaña has really spelled out her level of commitment to the role of Neytiri across the Avatar series. The American actress has said that she effectively signed up for a job that will have spanned 26 years, once the fifth and final movie in the series is completed. She told Deadline: “I was 28 when I did the first movie and I think, if all goes to plan, I'll be 53/54 for the very fifth one and last one”.
4. Kate Winslet out-stunted Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise’s physical commitment to his work has become Hollywood folklore, with the ageless actor performing physical feats that seem to border on the superhuman. Spare a thought for England’s own Kate Winslet, then, who smashed one of the Top Gun actor’s records during the making of Avatar: The Way of Water. While Cruise managed to hold his breath for 6 minutes and 6 seconds while making Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, Winslet came up for air after 7 minutes and 14 seconds. Take that, Tom.
5. The Avatar filmset was vegan
The Avatar series has a strong ecological theme running right through it. From a certain angle, it can be taken as one long treatise on environmental mistreatment and respect for life. As such, James Cameron – a committed vegan and animal rights activist himself – insisted on his sets being completely free of animal products. This included providing entirely plant-based menus for all of the actors and staff working on the films.
6. Avatar made James Cameron exceedingly rich
It’s hardly a surprising fact to note that James Cameron is a very rich man indeed. This is the man who made Titanic, Terminator 2, and Aliens, after all. Nor is it surprising to learn that Cameron has made a lot of money from the Avatar series. However, you might be surprised by just how much. Thanks to a particularly sweet back-end deal, Cameron made an estimated $350 million from the first film alone – a record amount for a director.
7. Avatar 2 was too powerful for Wellington
As we’ve noted already, its was Wētā Digital that ultimately inspired James Cameron to finally pull the trigger on the original Avatar, and it was the New Zealand-based special effects company that the director chose to help bring his story to life. However, the second film in the series tested Peter Jackson’s company to its limits, with its heavy duty water simulation effects drawing more power than Wētā’s home town of Wellington was able to provide. It was forced to draft in Amazon Web Services data centres to take on the extra load.
8. A surprising amount of water was used in the sequel
We all think of the Avatar films as special effects extravaganzas, so it can be surprising to learn just how much old fashioned physical film making goes into the process. For example, in the second film, Cameron had two huge water tanks made to help sell the movie’s watery vibe. The biggest of these was a 250,000-gallon monstrosity, complete with built-in wave machine. Getting water right is famously tricky, so Cameron went as far as as motion-capturing the wet stuff just as he did for his actors.
9. The cast was largely unfamiliar to Cameron
While the Avatar series often feels like a mash up of elements from previous James Cameron movies, his acting roster was largely unfamiliar to him. Of the main cast (and not including Titanic's Kate Winslet in a supporting role), only Sigourney Weaver had appeared in a major role for him before – and that was a single film (Aliens) a full 23 years earlier. At one point, Michael Biehn was in line to play the role of chief antagonist Miles Quaritch, but Cameron wanted to avoid audiences drawing too many parallels with Aliens. Let’s face it, though – Quaritch is more of a Lt. Coffey (from The Abyss) than a Cpl. Hicks.
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