After almost a year of teasing, James Cameron and Fox have agreed to make a pair of sequels to the sci-fi smash and box office phenomenon "Avatar."
Fox is targeting December 2014 for the release of the sequel, with the third film tentatively slated for release the following year. Cameron will begin work on the scripts early next year.
The official announcement has been expected. In November of last year, star Sam Worthington said he had already signed for two more films. A month later, Cameron said he already had the stories worked out.
But momentum had been building of late. In August, Cameron told MTV he wanted to finish a novel based on the films before commiting to a filming schedule.
Cameron also said he's considering shooting two sequels simultaneously -- à la "Lord of the Rings" or "Pirates."
The first film, which was released in 2009, has grossed more than $2.7 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
In February, "Avatar" broke the all-time domestic box-office record set by Cameron's "Titanic" in 1998. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won three -- but ultimately lost the "Best Director" and "Best Picture" Oscars to "The Hurt Locker," a film directed by Cameron's ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow.
Despite the hype surrounding the production, "Avatar" was not only not the most expensive movie ever made -- its total budget and marketing costs fell somewhere below $400 million, according to Fox, putting it below “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” “Spider-Man 3” and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” -- it generated a huge profit.
In August, the studio posted record operating income of $1.3 billion for the fiscal year, with "Avatar" contributing nearly $1 billion to the bottom line.
News Corp.-owned Fox has been anxious about getting a sequel in the pipeline. During a recent conference call to discuss quarterly earnings, chairman Rupert Murdoch said, "We have a great slate of films coming up, but we don't have an 'Avatar' in there."
Here's the full release:
LOS ANGELES (October 27, 2010) -- Moving forward with the most anticipated films of the next decade, Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman announced today that Academy Award®-winning filmmaker James Cameron has agreed to make AVATAR 2 and 3 as his next films.
Cameron, who had always viewed AVATAR as the creation of a new world and mythology, will begin work on the scripts early next year with an eye towards commencing production later in 2011. Cameron will decide if he will shoot the films back-to-back after he completes the scripts, but the release of the first, as yet untitled sequel, is targeted for December 2014, with the third film contemplated for a December 2015 release.
AVATAR 2 & 3 will be produced by Cameron and Jon Landau for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment.
