James Cameron is planning to make his Avatar sequels so unbelievably amazing, so technically advanced, and so stupidly beautiful that regular moviegoers like us just won't be able to fully comprehend it.
"I've hired the best artists and technicians in the world to design these films," explains Cameron. "There will be such a richness of imagery that I think people just won't be able to imagine it in advance, but it will just seem right when they finally see it."
Following up the most successful film of all time (something he's already done once before) isn't exactly easy, but it seems like the multi-multi-Oscar winning director is making things needlessly difficult for himself by planning a four-part, five-year series of linked "couplets" that will fill IMAX screens almost continuously between 2020 and 2025.
[Not what the sequels will look like. You can't even imagine what the sequels will look like.]
"Yeah, it's a little bit daunting!" he laughs. "But it's very exciting too. I sort of made a decision for myself that everything I need to say artistically as a filmmaker, I'm going to say across those four films, and I wrote them accordingly."
Dropping few hints about story details (Sigourney Weaver is somehow coming back from the dead, as is '80s movie villain Stephen Lang), we know that the films are going to explore areas of Pandora that the first film didn't take us to – including a few deep sea locales that saw the director filming footage from his personal one-man submarine.
"We set the bar very high with the first movie," he explains. "So we have to tick all those boxes and go beyond this time around, which I think we're definitely going to do.
"The key to sequels is that they have to surprise. They have to feel fresh, and sometimes even go against expectation, but at the same time they have to do it in a way that's satisfying and doesn't pull the rug out from under you."
Not planning to release the films in glasses-free 3D, as some rumours originally suggested, ("it's not even an issue in the cinema – it's in the home that people refuse to wear 3D glasses, and that's what we need to crack"), Cameron is looking at shooting in a higher frame rate to give the sequels "a little more visual punch" than the original.
Now staring down the barrel of an eight-year production schedule, the 63-year-old director/explorer/inventor seems remarkably relaxed about what he's setting himself up for.
"It's a huge project for sure, but I like huge projects. I'm a storyteller and I make films for the big screen at the highest possible level of what's technically achievable. And I'm just going to keep doing that until someone says they don't need me anymore.
"Luckily there's no sign of that happening just yet..."
Avatar 2 is scheduled for 2020. Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D will open in cinemas on August 29.
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