Avatar sequels officially start production today with a total budget over $1 billion

After several delays, James Cameron and Co. finally got Avatar 2 off the ground and running in Manhattan Beach today as reported by Deadline. Production will continue non-stop with Avatar 3, 4, and 5 before 2 finally comes out in theaters in 2020. Cameron's plan to shoot four blockbuster-budget films back-to-back is unprecedented, with only Peter Jackson coming close to sniffing that with the original Lord of the Rings trilogy.

What's also unprecedented is the kind of money that Cameron will be working with, as the four films' total budget is said to equal over $1 billion. Avatar 2 is said to have both an "ambitious" and "amazing" script according to Sigourney Weaver, who somehow will fit into the film despite her character dying near the end of the first movie.

There is also a similar conundrum with another major character that will appear in all four sequel films (Spoilers), who is also supposed to be very dead. How the script will work around these two seemingly major plot issues remains to be seen, but at least the movies will be nice to look at.

Avatar 2 releases on December 18th, 2020.

[Deadline]