Avatar Sequels Will End Two-Month Coronavirus Shutdown And Resume Production Soon

The Avatar sequels are set to resume filming in New Zealand very soon. Producer Jon Landau made the announcement on Twitter, saying he's headed back to New Zealand for the week beginning May 25 to start filming again after the production was shut down due to COVID-19.

To celebrate the news, Landau released a new image of two marine vessels that will be seen in the movie, the Matador and the Picador.

Production on the Avatar sequels stopped in mid-March, so the shutdown lasted around two months. The New Zealand government recently paved the way for productions to begin again, and it seems Amazon's Lord of the Rings series may follow Avatar, though it hasn't been announced yet. Work has continued on the digital effects for the Avatar sequels at Weta Digital throughout the shutdown.

Directed by James Cameron, Avatar 2 is slated for release in 2021, and three more sequels are scheduled for 2023, 2025, and 2027. However, whether or not the two latter films release depends on the box office performance of the first sequel.

Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, and Stephen Lang will reprise their roles from the first movie, and will be joined by Kate Winslet, Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, and Jemaine Clement.

Ubisoft is developing a new Avatar game from The Division studio Ubisoft Massive and a new Ubisoft studio called Ubisoft Stockholm. Ubisoft has hired Battlefield veteran Patrick Bach to lead the team, which is on a hiring spree.