Avatar 2: why did the first script end up in the trash?

Writing the “Avatar” sequel was no small feat for James Cameron and his team. He recently confided in an interview that the first script for “The Way of the Water” ended up in the trash after a year of writing.

Avatar 2: We’re almost there

In December 2009, James Cameron presented his most ambitious feature film to the world: Avatar. The film becomes a real eventand still remains today biggest worldwide box office hit of all time. Imagined as the first part of a long saga, its sequel did not arrive until thirteen years later, after multiple postponements above all linked to Cameron’s desire to write all the following movies before starting filming. baptized The Way of the Waterthis second installment will arrive in theaters on December 14.

Avatar: The Waterway © 20th Century Studios/Disney

This new film takes place ten years after the first. Jake and Neytiri had children but their idyllic life is threatened when the GDR returns to Pandora. Forced to leave their natural habitat, they find refuge on the reefs. In the middle of these magical seascapes, they meet a new people, the Metkayinawith customs different from theirs.

An inconclusive first attempt

In an interview given to The Times UK, James Cameron has made an astonishing revelation. After spending a year on a script ofAvatar 2he finally decided to put it in the garbage.

Before I started working with my scriptwriters, I told them “we can’t do 2 until we understand why 1 worked so well”. We have to find the magic formula

said James Cameron. Before continuing:

The first film managed to make three levels coexist. The surface: good characters, a disruptive element, and a resolution. The theme: what is the film trying to say? And finally the subconscious. After writing an entire script for the sequel I reread it, and found that it didn’t even make it to level three. Boom. I started all over again. It took a year.

Last year, in an interview given to Marianne Williamson PodcastJames Cameron confided in this third dimension, more spiritual :

There was something dreamlike. This desire to be there, on this planet (…) to fly, to feel this freedom, this forest. There was a very powerful sensory feeling.

James Cameron almost fired his screenwriters

Avatar: The Way of WaterAvatar: The Way of Water
Avatar: The Waterway © 20th Century Studios/Disney

In this same podcast, the director ofAvatar had confided to having almost fired his writing team as they began to write the following:

I got together a group of writers and told them that we wouldn’t start writing the sequel until we had managed to put our finger on what worked on the first film. They wanted to talk about the sequels at all costs, and I said “no, we’re not going to do it like that”. I ended up having to threaten to fire them because they were doing what all screenwriters do: trying to create new stories.

Avatar 2: why did the first script end up in the trash? – CineSeries