People say that you should always believe in your dreams, but sometimes this saying is much more literal than it sounds. Per Avatar: Path of Water director and screenwriter James Cameron, believing in your dreams meant embarking on a grand project that would take decades to complete. In a recent interview for GQthe director said that the initial ideas for Avatar The franchise, which already has three more installments in the making, came to him in a dream when he was just 19 years old.
Young Cameron didn’t know this at the time, but a simple act he did in the ’70s saved him from many of the headaches that would come when the franchise finally kicked off. After he had a dream, he decided to do some drawings, which became a really early concept for the franchise. Cameron also knew that this project would not be easy to bring to life, so he first needed to establish himself as a hitmaker before the studio trusted him to tell the story of blue aliens fighting for their homeland. And it all started with Pandora:
“I woke up after dreaming of such a bioluminescent forest with trees that looked like fiber optic lamps and a river that glowed with bioluminescent particles and purple moss on the ground that lit up when you walked through it. And these kinds of lizards that didn’t look good until they took off. And then they turn into these spinning fans, like living frisbees, and they fall and land on something. It was all in a dream. I woke up very excited and actually drew it. So, I do have a drawing. This has saved us from about 10 lawsuits. In any successful movie, there’s always some freak with tinfoil under a wig who thinks you’ve put the idea out of his head. And it turned out to be 10 or 11. And so I pointed to this drawing that I drew when I was 19 years old, when I was at Fullerton College, and I said, “See this? See those glowing trees? See that glowing lizard that’s spinning, is it orange? See the purple moss? And everyone left.”
At the time of the premiere Avatar became the highest-grossing film in history - a title previously held by another film by James Cameron, Titanic. In the next four parts, Cameron promises a host of new technologies designed specifically for Avatarincluding the ability to watch 3D movies without 3D glasses.
Future Avatar In danger?
However, all future Avatar in danger of not seeing the light: An ambitious project cost so much that Avatar: Path of Water has to become one of the highest-grossing films of all time to break even, meaning less than $2 billion in ticket sales could already put the franchise’s future in jeopardy. At the same GQ interview, Cameron spared no words and said that Avatar: Path of Water was “fucking” expensive, and that the sequel was “the worst business case in movie history”. At the same time, the director showed confidence and said that he likes complex projects and that they attract him.
Avatar: Path of Water premieres in theaters December 16th. You can watch the latest trailer below:
Source: Collider
