Filming for Avatar 2, which is now due in December 2022, is "100 percent complete."
That's the word straight from director James Cameron, who gave fans an extended update on the production and how it's been affected by COVID-19 during a recent livestream chat with his Terminator collaborator Arnold Schwarzenegger that was conducted as part of this year’s Austrian World Summit, an environmental conference.
"Well, [COVID-19] hit us like it hit everybody," Cameron said about nine minutes into the video below. "Hit us hard. We lost about four and a half months of production. As a result of that, we've rolled around one more full year for a release in December of [2022]. That's been announced already. Now, that doesn't mean that I have an extra year to finish the film because the day we deliver Avatar 2 we'll just start working on finishing Avatar 3. So where we are right now, I'm down in New Zealand shooting. We're shooting the remainder of the live action. We've got about 10 percent left to go. We're 100 percent complete on Avatar 2 and we're sort of 95 percent complete on Avatar 3."
Cameron also praised New Zealand for how it's handled the pandemic, which stands in stark contrast with how things have gone here in the States.
"We're very lucky in that we chose this as our production site years ago," Cameron said. "We made the first film here in New Zealand and it turns out to be, it's ranked either the first or second best country in the world for its [COVID-19] response. Sometimes Germany is in the number one spot, sometimes New Zealand is in the number one spot. But we're actually able to operate. We're at level 2 here right now but we're able to operate, we're able to shoot, and we're able to have a more or less normal life here. We're very fortunate."
Moving forward, Cameron added, he doesn't "see any roadblocks" on the path to completing both movies:
PerDeadline, Cameron and producer Jon Landau made their way back to New Zealand in June to resume their creative duties after production had originally been paused in March due to virus concerns. According to their report, 55 crew members were given special dispensation in order to enter the country to join the production.
Avatar 2 arrives on Dec. 16, 2022. Avatar 3 will be released on Dec. 20, 2024. Additional sequels, meanwhile, are expected in 2026 and 2028.
