James Cameron needs to future proof before doing Avatar 2 & 3

There’s something mysteriously positive about the idea of shooting sequels back-to-back. It makes it seem as though the filmmakers have a definitive plan that will come together as a singular vision instead of a third film slammed into production by the machine despite almost no resemblance to the characters we fell in love with in prior installments.

It seems that way, but it doesn’t always work that way.

Breaking News: Cameron to take on 2 new Avatar movies/td>

For each Lord of the Rings there’s a Pirates of the Caribbean. Now, James Cameron is tossing his ship out into the ocean to join those crews that went before him – promising that Avatar 2: Organically Electric Boogaloo and Avatar 3 will be shot together and released one year apart.

However, the most interesting part of the Q&A that Cameron did last night was about the idea of “future-proofing” his films.

The money quote here:

    “In order to [film the movies together for separate release], we have to refine our technical processes beyond the end of where we were finishing [Avatar] a year ago. We need to future-proof ourselves out five or six years to the end of the third film.”

This is a clear sign of what a visionary filmmaker should be thinking and saying. Many filmmakers gets dubbed “visionary” in our quote-happy times, but Cameron proves it with careful innovation and foresight like this to plan for a movie shot in 2011 (let’s say) being released in 2013 (perhaps) to look like  it’s from 2015.

It doesn’t get more visionary than that.

What do you think?