James Cameron Says Making ‘Avatar’ Sequel Was “Not A No-Brainer, It’s A Lot To Live Up To”

deadline.com:

For Avatar: The Way of Water filmmaker James Cameron, making a sequel to the world’s highest-grossing movie ever was “not a no-brainer” with the original 2009 movie providing “a lot to live up to.”   Cameron was speaking to press ahead of Tuesday night’s world premiere of The Way of Water here in London, where the movie was enthusiastically received.

Said Cameron, “It seems obvious to everyone, ‘Oh, you just made a bunch of money, go do a sequel.’ Well, Steven Spielberg didn’t do a sequel to ET, the highest grossing film in its time.

It’s not a no-brainer, do you want to call down the same lightning strike in the same spot? It’s a lot to live up to.” His “amazing” cast and the “amazing family of artists and troupe players and all the other actors… was a big incentive” to come back and “do it all again.” It’s important, Cameron mused, for a sequel “to honor what the audience loved in the experience the first time, but also to get them off balance and do things that they don’t expect.” With Way of Water, he added, “There are a lot of surprises in terms of where the story goes that we’re not putting into the trailers and the TV spots and all that, you have to kind of experience it.” He was joined by producer Jon Landau and cast members Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet and Stephen Lang in the virtual get-together.

Part of Cameron’s inspiration came from the fact that Saldana and Worthington are now parents. “We wanted to get into the family dynamics and the responsibilities of having kids and also what that’s all like from the kids’ perspective.” Worthington said that in order to cover the time-lapse since the first film, Cameron gave him a script that was essentially “Avatar 1.5” which was