How James Cameron Wrote Three ‘Avatar’ Sequels Simultaneously

Via /film:

When you follow up the biggest hit in box office history, audiences expect something great. They expect something even greater from the director of two of the best sequels of all time, Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Aliens. So Cameron took his sweet time making sure the scripts were right.

At the LA Times’ Hero Complex Film Festival this past weekend, he explained exactly how that happened. He spent the first year of actual development writing 1,500 pages of notes and then hired four writers — Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver and Shane Salerno — to help him write the scripts from those idea. To manage all those minds, Cameron looked back to his experiences writing Dark Angel for inspiration.

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We tried an experiment. We set ourselves a challenge of writing three films at the same time. And I could certainly write any one of them but to write three in some reasonable amount of time — we wanted to shoot them together so we couldn’t start one until all three scripts were done and approved. So I knew I was going to have to “parallel process” which meant I would have to work with other writers. And the best experience I had working with other writers was in television when I did Dark Angel. The television room is a highly collaborative, fun experience.

So we put together three teams, one for each script. The teams consist of me and another writer on each one of the three [films]. So I’m across all the films and then each one of them would have their own individual script they were responsible for. But what we did that was unique was we sat in the 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, sort of, three film saga. And I didn’t tell them which one was going to be theirs individually to write until the last day. So everyone was equally invested, story wise, in all three films.

These comments came directly from Cameron at his recent Hero Complex Film Festival appearance and they represent yet another example of the current trend of co-mingling TV and movies. Limited run TV series like True Detective and Fargo that play like a long movie with a narrative arc that has a specific beginning and ending in one season. That approach has made its way from cable to broadcast networks as with the new CBS series Extant:

“The series will follow a model just like its summer companion Under the Dome, meaning if the show is successful, it would continue on with a second season — with Berry returning as its lead, producers said. In other words, don’t let its billing as an “event” or “limited” series throw you — this is a cable model 13-episode drama. We love the idea of season two being the sequel to this,” [showrunner Greg] Walker said. “The threat we establish in season one … will continue in season two.”

With Avatar, Cameron brought the TV writers room to the story development process. Lots of cross-pollination going on between the two story platforms. And to think when I first broke into the business not even three decades ago, there was little to no crossover: You were a movie writer… or a TV writer. No more.

By the way, I’ve got an interview in the works with Micky Fisher, who wrote Extant as a spec script, and possibly Greg Walker about the CBS series.

For the rest of the /film article, go here.

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