Filmbloggen Slashfilm ^[1](via The Playlist ^[2]) rapporterte i går at James Cameron ^[3] har vært i det eksperimentelle hjørnet hva angår manusarbeidet på de kommende tre Avatar-oppfølgerne.

Cameron gjestet nylig årets Hero Complex Film Festival ^[4] i Los Angeles, for å prate om The Terminator og Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Under masterclassen avslørte han også hvordan arbeidet med fjernsynsserien Dark Angel ^[5] har inspirert ham til å skrive Avatar 2, 3 og 4 parallelt, for å ivareta flyten i historiefortellingen på best mulig måte.

Ifølge The Playlist ^[2] skal blockbuster-auteuren ha opparbeidet seg 1500 sider med notater, før han ansatte fire manusforfattere – Josh Friedman, Amanda Silver, Rick Jaffa og Shane Salerno – til å utarbeide tankene til tre fullendte filmmanus:

We tried an experiment. We set ourselves a challenge of writing three films at the same time. I knew I could certainly write any one of them but to write three in some reasonable amount of time… I knew I would have to work with other writers. The best experience I had working with other writers was in television when I did Dark Angel. So we put together a team, three teams actually – one for each script.

We sat in a writing room for five months, eight-hours-a-day, and we worked out every beat of the story across all three films so it all connects as one three film saga. I didn’t tell them which sequel was going to be theirs to write until the very last day, so everybody was equally invested story-wise in all three films. We all consider that to be a really exciting, creative and groundbreaking experiment in screenwriting.

Avatar 2 ^[6], 3 ^[7] og 4 ^[8] går i opptak denne høsten ^[9], og den første av oppfølgerne har – om alt går etter planen – premiere i desember 2016.