Avatar's Sequels Will Cost A BILLION DOLLARS
Money, money, money, must be funny...
A decade might have passed since Avatar came out by the time the first Avatar sequel comes out, but 20th Century Fox have a lot of faith in James Cameron's vision for an expanded franchise. That confidence - which seems not to acknowledge that the first movie was a clone of Fern Gully - has already confirmed FOUR sequels for the next decade or so, and now we've got some insight into how much that will cost.
Apparently, they're so confident that the sequels will capture some of the magic of the original (which pulled in close to $3 billion at the global box office) that they're willing to spend more than a billion dollars on making them.
Deadline reports that the combined budgets of the four sequels – which just started filming, with 2 and 3 filming back-to-back and the other two set for a similar approach after – is over $1 billion. So presumably $250m each, putting them on a par with Captain America: Civil War, Batman v Superman and The Fate Of The Furious.
For Fox to pull those budgets back, they really need the initial cynicism to the projects' announcement to fade away into excitement. Which really means that the first sequel is going to have to be stellar - and far better than Fern Gully 2 turned out to be.
The figures are just about in line with what the original Avatar cost ($237 million according to Variety), which suggests that Cameron has similar technology pushing innovations planned for the sequels. And while most of the movies with such super-sized budgets tend to make a billion dollars, or close to that amount, it still feels a little obscene.
To put it into context, you could have 208 Reservoir Dogs for the same price or 20 Jaws or 78 It's A Wonderful Lifes.