Kaltxi! That means “hello.” Sorry, I’ve been brushing up on my Na’vi lately.

Love it or hate it, Avatar has people talking. A lot. The film is an untested, original (by today’s standards) franchise that went from being the most secret project in Hollywood to a billion dollar juggernaut in just twenty days of release. It currently holds the all time worldwide #2 spot and may possibly trump Cameron’s Titantic, a feat no one has been able to accomplish in over a decade. The film still holds an 84% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and had a three weekend run in which the dropoff was barely existant. The obvious question on most people’s minds is will Cameron take us all back to the wonderful planet of Pandora? Today we now know that the answer is yes. The update comes from an email sent to Harry over at AICN, so I’ll just include the entire thing below:

I just saw a Variety Screening Series showing of Avatar at the Arclight theater in Hollywood tonight, followed with a Q&A with James Cameron and two of his visual effects artists. One of the artists mentioned that they’ll never again do this for the first time, meaning that everything they did in the making of Avatar was just a lot of instinctive grasping in the dark. Cameron agreed with him. He also told him to expect the studio to want another one, as they’d passed the billion $ mark. A second film will be easier, as the technology now exists, thanks to the movie. The moderator asked if there *would* be an Avatar sequel. To which Cameron answered that the plan had always been to make a trilogy of films. Finally, Cameron actually said it: “Yes, there’ll be another.”

AAAHAHAHAHAHA!!! YES!!! Okay, sorry. I’m good now. This is sure to piss off everyone who hated the movie, but let them eat dirt or something else that’s unenjoyable. People seem to forget that two of the best sequels of all time were directed by Cameron, and that he absolutely knows how to up the ante. This doesn’t mean Avatar 2 will be his next project, though I’m hoping it will. He’s currently contemplating several projects, most in a production capacity. I’m curious to see how he streamlines his technology into something more manageable than a four year wait. It’ll be interesting to see the new developments to his eMotion capture system, how the 3D immersion improves, and how he addresses story concerns from the first film.

None of this is “official”, meaning no press releases have been issued but let’s be real. Known franchises don’t even do this well. This is the kind of steam you want to get out of a possible series, and Fox would be skxawngs (“morons”) not to move ahead with a sequel. Something tells me Cameron would probably build his own studio and do it himself, anyway. Is anyone else excited for this besides me?

Side note: I was watching a Sigourney Weaver interview earlier wherein she talks about Weta’s involvement and their process of animation. “The Weta guys spend 47 hours of manpower per each 1/24th of a second in translating the data received from the motion-capture sensors.” That’s pretty freaking incredible.

-Brian

Source: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43559