James Cameron reveals more details about his wrecked Avatar 2 script and how it was reused. The Canadian filmmaker is the three-time Academy Award-winning talent behind hits like the terminator, Aliensand titanic, whose directorial effects have become scarce over the years, but mostly to huge success. In 2009, Cameron wrote and directed Avataran all-original film about the lush planet of Pandora inhabited by the indigenous Na’vi tribe, whose homeworld is threatened by human settlers in search of the precious mineral known as unobtanium.
Thanks in large part to its groundbreaking visual effects, Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time, a title it still holds today after numerous reissues. Because of this incredible success, Cameron began developing numerous sequels, the first of which, Avatar: The way of the water, coming out next month. The more than ten-year difference between the episodes is attributed to the fact that Cameron and his team once again had to develop new performance capture technology before filming. Cameron also deleted a Avatar 2 he spent a whole year writing the script, instead he started on the screenplay that would be The way of the water.
During a recent interview with Total movie (through game radar), Cameron revealed some more details about his wrecked Avatar 2 script, titled Avatar: The High Ground. Cameron and his team of writers, including Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno, actually finished the 130-page script, but decided to scrap it because it wasn’t good enough. However, the ideas were reused in the Avatar sequels and a series of graphic novels. Read what Cameron said below:
We came up with a way to restructure the elements we needed to distribute across the first two of the sequels, and relaunched it in a very different way. There’s great stuff in it. I mean, you have the Na’vi fighting with bows and arrows in Zero-G. I mean, I’m here! I want to see that movie. But it just didn’t accomplish enough of the overall story and thematic goals I had in mind. So we’re turning it into a Dark Horse graphic novel. You will be able to see that midterm battle that took place between movie one and movie two.
How to read the wrecked avatar: The High Ground Story
While the Avatar: The High Ground script was scrapped, the ideas are not completely forgotten. As Cameron discusses above, some of his best ideas and elements were repurposed into Avatar: The way of the water. The story was also reworked into a Dark Horse graphic novel series. titled Avatar: The High Ground to Cameron’s original Avatar 2 script, the graphic novel series follows a battle that takes place between the first two films, when the humans return to Pandora with an armada of heavily armed starships, and Jake and Neytiri must fight not only to defend their Na’Vi family, but their home planet itself.
With the first of three issues to be released on December 6, the graphic novel will act as a direct prequel to Avatar: The way of the water and bridge the decade-long gap between the first two films before the sequel hits theaters on December 17 Avatar: The High Ground‘s ideas were also reused in Avatar 3which could possibly have the title Avatar: The Seed Carrier and has reportedly finished filming ahead of its scheduled release date of December 20, 2024 Avatar 2 script clearly pays off for Cameron and his team of writers, as the ideas weren’t just reworked into multiple ones Avatar sequels, but also expanded the franchise in the form of a graphic novel.
Source: Total Film (via game radar)
