Filmsane

I know I know, it’s going to be a while before even the first of the planned four Avatar sequels see the light of day… aka.. the premiere date.

Avatar 2 is arriving in December 2020, and the rest of them will be in theaters by 2025 which means that James Cameron will be a VERY busy man in the next couple of years. In fact the production of the sequels already began, with a mixed bag of old and new actors in the cast.

Cameron of course introduced the new younger cast that consists of Jamie Flatters, Britain Dalton, Trinity Bliss, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo, Duane Evans Jr, Jack Champion, and apparently the budget for the four movies is in the 1 billion dollar range.

The script was written by Cameron with Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and apparently he’s planning to shoot some footage seven miles underwater in the Challenger Deep, the deepest point of the Mariana Trench and also the deepest location on earth.

Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang are returning to the cast from the 2009 movie, while Oona Chaplin joined the sequels after her success with the TV series like Game Of Thrones and Taboo.

Now, 1 billion dollars is not that much considering that there are 4 movies in question, and the fact that all are filmed with the latest CGI technology and of course the fact that the original 2009 movie earned more than 2 billion dollars on the box office alone. The movie also won 3 Oscars.

But while we wait for Avatar 2 to arrive to theaters, let’s look back at some awesome, yet useless facts about the 2009 movie.

Director James Cameron, known for being tough on set, allegedly kept a nail-gun on set that he would use to nail cell phones, that had the misfortune of ringing, to a wall above the exit sign.

At the time of auditioning, Sam Worthington was living in his car.

The Na’vi language was created entirely from scratch by linguist Dr. Paul R. Frommer. James Cameron hired him to construct a language that the actors could pronounce easily, but did not resemble any single human language. Frommer created about 1,000 words.

This movie took four years to make, from pre-production to release.

Matt Damon and Jake Gyllenhaal were the studio’s first choices to play Jake Sully, but James Cameron decided to cast the less-known Sam Worthington in the lead role.

According to Sam Worthington, he was invited to the casting via a phone call. The person who called told him nothing about the script, nor did they even tell him the director’s name.

Worthington was disappointed at first, thinking it was “another waste of time.”

Chris Pine auditioned for the lead role and said that it was his worst audition ever.

James Cameron admitted in an interview that he got the idea for “Avatar” after watching Disney’s 1995 animated film Pocahontas (1995).

Sam Worthington said in an interview that it was easier for him to master the Na’vi language than the American accent.

Chris Pratt auditioned for the role of Jake Sully.

The word “na’vi” in Hebrew means prophet. A na’vi is a visionary or someone who communicates directly with God. Its plural, nevi’im, also refers to the prophetic books of the bible, which include “Daniel,” “Micah,” and “Isaiah.”

The year is never stated, but the video log shows that the year is 2154. The final battle takes place during August 2154, 200 years from the date of James Cameron’s birth.

The first time Sigourney Weaver has appeared in a James Cameron film since Aliens (1986). Cameron said that he didn’t want to cast her at first, exactly because “she was [his] safest choice to play the botanist.”

The first (and only, as of 2010) science-fiction feature film by James Cameron that does not involve or mention nuclear weapons.

Any scene with Zoe Saldana was done 100% physically, facially and vocally all at the same time. It took a year to capture and transfer all of that to Neytiri.

Sigourney Weaver plays a role similar the one she played in Gorillas in the Mist (1988).

In much of the movie, Sigourney Weaver’s avatar wears a Stanford tank top. Weaver attended Stanford in the early 1970s.