Avatar: The Way of Water may have just hit cinemas, but director James Cameron has already taken steps to avoid a Stranger Things-like gaffe in future movies.
The follow-up to 2009’s Avatar was 13 years in the making, and it will be a few more years before the further three planned sequels are released.
The third movie in the series was filmed back to back with the recently released second and is projected to premiere in 2024.
Whether the final two movies will be filmed rests on how well Avatar: The Way of Water performs – it will need to make $US2 billion ($2.9 billion) just to break even.
Prospects are looking good, with the film raking in $US855.4 million ($1.2 billion) internationally in its opening week.
And Cameron, used to success at this point in his glittering film career, has planned ahead for the possibility the final two movies will receive the green light.
The writer-director told Entertainment Weekly he has already shot the first act of the fourth Avatar film to avoid what he called “the Stranger Things effect”, meaning the inevitable and obvious growth spurt of child actors on multi-year projects.
Avatar’s famous groundbreaking performance-capture visual effects is capable of transforming human actors into incredibly detailed, life-like Na’vi.
In the most recent film, the technology even allowed 73-year-old Sigourney Weaver to play 14-year-old Na’vi child Kiri – the daughter of Weaver’s human character from the first film.
But not all actors get to hide behind a blue face.
Jack Champion, now 18, won the role of human boy Spider when he was 12.
He started filming when he was 14, and finished when he was 16.
Despite the filming only covering two years, Champion told The Hollywood Reporter he could spot the changes in his body in different scenes throughout Avatar: The Way of Water.
“In some scenes, I’m 14, and then in the next scene, I’m 16. So I’m like, ‘Wait a second, I look slightly more pudgy.'” he said.
“And then in another scene, I’m two inches taller with abs.
“Puberty just happens, and we had to let it run its course.”
Cameron said with with Champion “growing like a weed” over the 18-month filming period, he needed to take steps to avoid even more noticeable physical changes when less time had passed within the films’ storylines.
“I love Stranger Things, but you get the Stranger Things effect where they’re supposed to still be in high school, and they look like they’re 27,” Cameron said.
COVID-19 almost derailed Cameron’s plans to accommodate his young actors’ growth spurts when production in New Zealand was forced to shut down right before Champion would noticeably age up.
Cameron feared the delay would extend to a year and half, and the role of Spider would have to be recast and scenes reshot.
“It was like, ‘Just hand me the shotgun,'” he said.
“But fortunately, it didn’t work out that way. We were able to appeal to the New Zealand government to let in a small group of our key [actors] so that we could bring the production back.”
The delay resulted in the film’s release being pushed back a year, but Champion was able to keep his role and finish off his filming schedule.
Whether Champion’s character makes it all the way through the fourth film remains to be seen, as Cameron teased “a big time jump” after the first act; specifically, from “page 35 of the script in movie four”.
This means audiences may see a grown-up version of Spider, along with Na’vi child Tuk, played by actor Trinity Bliss who was about seven when she was cast, and is now 13.
“They’re young men, young women at that point, when we get to the B-side of that time jump,” Cameron said.
