At last, it's official: 'Avatar' will be a trilogy

By Sarah Sluis

Avatar could be the next Star Wars. The blockbuster success of Avatar led to widespread speculation that there would be a sequel (or two), especially since director James Cameron expressed interest in the idea. Now, after lengthy negotiations, it appears that Cameron will start scripting the next installment in the series early 2011, with production to start later that year and a release date aiming for December 2014. The third installment would be released in December 2015.

I did some Internet digging, and discovered a clue to the second film's plot: it will be set in Pandora's oceans . I had imagined the second film would involve humans trying yet again to mine the land of Pandora, using the same backdrop, but changing the locale makes the premise more intriguing. Perhaps humans do try to go back to Pandora, but choose a more secretive location: the ocean. This would involve the Na'vi and ocean creatures banding together to fight off humans once more. Whatever the conflict, the ocean location means that the second film will have lots more "wow" moments like the floating islands in the first film.

I imagine the sequels will play out something like Star Wars�you can keep adding ice planets (Hoth) and Ewoks to keep the audience entertained, but as the series progresses audiences get a lot more fulfillment from seeing the characters change and from personal revelations. (Darth Vader is my father!?) I think the Avatar sequels present an opportunity to build on such characters and become a satisfying trilogy.

Movie sequels today tend to be derivative, while television allows writers more leeway to create engaging characters that change and, ironically, provide film-level entertainment. Under James Cameron's directing eye and with Jon Landau as a producer, I predict Avatar will be a trilogy with enduring power, with the ability to produce many, many editions of home entertainment "special edition" box sets.