Avatar 2 Filmmaker James Cameron Reveals Beautiful BTS Images From Long-Awaited Sequel

The Avatar franchise is returning to the big screen next year, taking fans back to Pandora more than a decade after the first record-breaking journey. The Disney-owned 20th Century Studios is releasing four Avatar sequels over the next several years, the first of which is set to arrive next December. James Cameron has been working on the new chapters of the saga since 2017, and he's finally starting to peel back the curtain and let folks see what the team has been up to.

This week, EW released some concept art and behind-the-scenes photos from the production of Avatar 2. The concept art, which you can see below, shows off the basic idea of the first sequel, which sees Jake and his family escape to a new community on the coast.

"It sounds kind of nuts, the process," Cameron told EW. "I mean, if Avatar hadn't made so much damn money, we'd never do this – because it's kind of crazy."

Unlike the first Avatar, a good chunk of Avatar 2 will take place underwater. The actors were trained in scuba diving and a lot of the motion-capture work was done in enormous water tanks.

"Ultimately, the sequels are a story about family, and the lengths parents will go through to keep that family together and keep them safe," producer Jon Landau explained. "I always say that Jim's movies have universal themes – and really, there's no more universal theme than family."

"One of my favorite memories was we had this circular tank, maybe 40 feet wide, with a big glass portal in it. I walked by one day and I see Kate Winslet walking on the bottom of the tank," Landau added. "She's walking towards me and sees me in the window, and she just waves, gets to the end of the wall, turns around, and walks all the way back."

The world is much different now than it was when the first Avatar become the highest-grossing movie of all time back in 2010 (a record that has since been broken by Avengers: Endgame).

"The big issue is: Are we going to make any damn money?" the director said of the sequels. "Big, expensive films have got to make a lot of money. We're in a new world post-COVID, post-streaming. Maybe those [box office] numbers will never be seen again. Who knows? It's all a big roll of the dice."

Avatar 2 is set to arrive in theaters on December 16, 2022