James Cameron confirms that 'Avatar 2' has finished shooting

James Cameron says that the shooting of the live-action scenes on Avatar 2 is 100% complete, and that they’re very nearly finished with Avatar 3, too.

The legendary Oscar winner made this admission during a discussion with longtime collaborator Arnold Schwarzenegger to help spread the word about the 2020 Austrian World Summit environmental conference.

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The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and True Lies writer/director and star couldn’t resist the chance to talk about production on the Avatar sequels, which Cameron says was delayed by four and a half months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

This break meant that the release date for Avatar 2 was pushed all the way back to December 2022. However, Cameron was keen to stress that this doesn’t mean he’ll have an extra year to work on Avatar 2, as the moment he delivers the finished version of the blockbuster he’ll immediately to get work on “finishing Avatar 3.”

At the moment, Cameron is still in New Zealand filming Avatar 3, telling Schwarzenegger, “We’re shooting the remainder of the live action. We’ve got about ten percent left to go. We’re a hundred percent complete on Avatar 2 and we’re sort of ninety five percent complete on Avatar 3. So we’re very lucky in that we chose this as our production site years ago.”

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Once Cameron finishes shooting Avatar 3 he’ll instantly move onto filming Avatar 4 and Avatar 5, before he then starts the long and arduous task of completing the special effects and post-production work on each of these blockbusters.

All of this progress will hopefully mean that we’re going to get each Avatar sequel on their currently scheduled release dates. That means that Avatar 2 will be released on December 17, 2022, with Avatar 3 arriving on December 20, 2024, Avatar 4 hitting on December 18, 2026, and then, finally, Avatar 5 will round off the franchise on December 22, 2028.