James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, released worldwide in 2022, proved an interesting fact about the director’s career. This sequel had big shoes to fill with the critical and commercial success of the first film, but The Way of Water proved an excellent continuation of the Avatar saga. Avatar 2 didn’t make more than the first Avatar at the box office, but it was still an enormous success that confirmed the franchise will continue.
In the movie industry, releasing any sequel can be a challenge. A movie sequel must be able to live up to the original source material and also deliver something new to the story to audiences interested. This is often difficult to achieve, as seen with the Matrix sequels or even in superhero films. Fortunately, Avatar: The Way of Water was ready to meet the challenge, and now Cameron is set to release more Avatar movies that are expected to continue his incredible “sequels record.”
Avatar 2 Confirms How Good James Cameron Is With Sequels
Avatar: The Way of Water returns to the story of Jake Sully and Neytiri as they raise their family on Pandora and deal with a returning threat from their past. James Cameron always hoped to release a sequel to Avatar; with The Way of Water, he was able to bring audiences back into the visually stunning world of Pandora, now with a deeper and more meaningful story of Jake’s life with his family and creating a new challenge for the characters to overcome. Through The Way of Water, James Cameron confirmed how good he is with sequels.
Throughout his career, James Cameron has written and directed a few sequels that have reached similar high success as their originals This includes, in addition to The Way of Water, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Aliens, all of which provided new twists and took their characters in unexpected directions that kept their stories entertaining for audiences globally. These sequels were successful both critically and financially and are among James Cameron’s best movies. Of course, Piranha II: The Spawning, Cameron’s first feature film, must not really be considered.
What James Cameron’s Sequels All Have In Common
The one thing that James Cameron’s sequels have in common is that they are all able to successfully evolve and expand on the original story. Evolution is a key element in all of his sequels; James Cameron understands that returning to any story means that the sequel has to be bigger than the previous. Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Aliens went bigger in their stories, allowing their characters to have new adventures, but without forgetting their previous experiences and their origins. This includes the T-800 now being a good guy and Ripley fighting multiple Xenomorphs rather than just one “Alien.”
James Cameron understands that audiences will get bored if the same story is told repeatedly, whether it is following up on one of his movies or continuing the work of other filmmakers, such as in Aliens. He is able to enhance the original movies through the sequels, making them more interesting and developed for their audience. The third movie in the Avatar franchise is due for release in 2024; with the success of Avatar: The Way of Water and other sequels, critics and viewers have high hopes that James Cameron will deliver a sequel that is just as captivating as before.
