The Avatar saga is definitely not a franchise like the others! Director James Cameron has made a special request to all his collaborators on the set of the sequels.
On December 14, spectators will finally be able to discover Avatar 2 on the big screen, 13 years after the release of the first opus in 2009!
In this sequel, Jake Sully and Neytiri became parents. The plot takes place ten years after the events told in the original feature film. Their idyllic life, close to nature, is threatened when the Resources Development Administration, a dangerous non-governmental organization, returns to Pandora.
Forced to leave their natural habitat, Jake and his family travel to the reefs, where they believe they will find asylum. But they come across a clan, the Metkayina, with customs different from theirs.
JAMES CAMERON IS NOT KIDDING!
To bring this new episode ofAvatar, the actors had to undergo intensive training… and a strict diet! Very keen to carry ecological values throughout its history, james cameron pushed the logic to the production of the film itself.
So, according to slashfilmthe director imposed a diet on all his actors, from Sam Worthington at Zoe Saldana Passing by Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet Where Stephen Langstars of The Waterway.
Everyone therefore adopted a vegan lifestyle during filming, adopting a diet consistent with that of the Na’vi, the people of Pandora living in osmosis with nature.
James Cameron wanted to avoid the hypocrisy of advocating an ecological message and the fact of not adopting gestures in this direction.
He therefore explained the approach to his entire team and his desire that Avatar means something in people’s hearts, that the franchise was not just a way to make money.
“We have to follow the movement and lead by example. We have to live our lives, as collaborators working on this film, in coherence with the message of Avatar. So we are all going to eat vegan on this production”he ordered, extending this instruction to all the people involved in the filming.
For James Cameron, it is important to change his diet in order to be able to withstand a huge production like Avatar, which requires a huge expenditure of energy. In 2017, he was already talking about his conversion to veganism for this purpose.
“I am now 63 years old and I have the huge mission to make these Avatar movies. It will take me another seven or eight years to complete the full cycle of this project and I feel strong. I don’t think I could do that if I wasn’t vegan, not at that age. I think that’s a big factor.”he said.
This is a very strong commitment from the whole team, but the producer Jon Landau ensures that no one was forced to follow this diet. But “that’s all we serve”he says. “We don’t force anyone to eat there if they don’t want to. We do it because we think it’s important, not only from a health point of view but also from an environmental point of view”he concluded.
A DRACONIAN TRAINING
In addition, the actors were not spared in terms of physical commitment. Recently, Kate Winslet explained that James Cameron wanted the actors to undergo drastic training, including holding their breath as long as possible underwater.
Kate Winslet has given everything for this role, even exploding an apnea record! “I lasted 7 minutes and 14 seconds underwater, baby!”she exclaimed at the microphone of THR.
The actress broke the record for Tom Cruise of the longest underwater apnea on the set of a feature film. The interpreter of Ethan Hunt had held his breath underwater for 6 minutes to Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.
“It was awesome and I was very proud of myself. But I could probably never do it again. It happened after four weeks of pretty intense training and it was in the dive tank, in the training tank. But I loved it”said the Reading native.
“The most exciting thing for a woman my age was not learning to do something new, but downright superhuman”she concluded.
The training also served Sigourney Weaver. The interpreter of Grace Augustine held 6 minutes in apnea on the set of this second part, the majority of the scenes of which took place in huge tanks of water.
The great ability of the actors to hold their breath underwater allowed James Cameron to avoid many interruptions on the set. An exceptional commitment to this kind of production.
Avatar: The Way of Water will land on December 14. As for the first opus, it will be released in theaters on September 21.