Recently, New Zealand began easing up on its coronavirus lockdown measures. Filmmaker James Cameron and his crew didn’t waste any time and immediately traveled there to resume filming of Avatar sequels. Even though the country’s borders are still officially closed, the government granted them a special exemption due to the “significant economic value” of their production. Cameron, his producer Jon Landau and their crew will all spend two weeks in the mandatory quarantine. Afterward, the production will continue.
In 2009 Cameron directed, wrote, produced, and co-edited the science-fiction epic Avatar. It became the highest-grossing film in cinematic history and received nine Academy Awards nominations, winning three. Ever since, Cameron has been talking about sequels, so much so that this became a joke. And yet, a decade later, he really is filming these movies. When coronavirus first broke out, shooting stopped for two months, along with most of the other movie and TV productions around the world. There are currently three Avatar sequels planned. To lower production costs, the crew is concurrently filming two Avatar sequels and parts of the third one in several studios in Wellington and Auckland. Avatar 2 is coming out in December 2021.
