Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones 5
All the way back in August 2017 – nearly eight years after the release of the original film – writer/director James Cameron finally started the first bit of very early filming work on Avatar 2. The sequel to the biggest movie of all time had been rumoured for a long time, and as we’ve discussed before, has now extended to four more films. But Avatar 2 had already been a long, long time coming, and it’s a gamble as to whether audience interest remains in the saga.
Furthermore, Avatar 2 has been delayed a lot of times too. Coming to those shortly.
Separate to that, Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford and George Lucas had been mulling an Indiana Jones 5 since 2008’s not-very-well-liked Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. Ford noted at the time he was interested in another movie, as long as it didn’t take 20 years to make. The clock currently sits at 13, and counting. Still, when Disney bought George Lucas out in 2012 it seemed to bring with it a little extra momentum, and finally in 2015 there was absolute confirmation a fifth movie was on the way.
In fact, in the world of Indy, Disney was ready to announce a first release date for the film by early 2016. We learned at that point that the still untitled Indiana Jones 5 would be with us on July 19th 2019. Given that that’s two years in the past and none of us have seen the movie, it’s no spoiler to reveal that did not happen.
Avatar 2 behind the scenes
But then nor did Avatar 2’s first announced release date either, and the battle of the duelling delays was well and truly on. James Cameron had teased initially a 2015 release for his follow-up, which didn’t happen. Then Avatar 2 moved to December 2016, with Avatar 3 promised at the end of 2017 and a fourth movie one year after that. Given that that preliminary filming only began just before Avatar 3 had been originally scheduled, you can guess where this is going. Delays, delays, delays.
The stories of both Avatar 2 and Indiana Jones 5 thus have two things in common. Firstly, that the films seem to get further away rather than closer with each new announcement about their respective releases. Secondly, they’ve both ended up on the Disney asset book. Avatar had always been a 20th Century Fox project, but it’s taken so long to get a second film going that Fox no longer exists in that form, swallowed up by the Disney empire a few years ago.
Not that having the most successful current movie company in the world behind it appears, ultimately, to have greased the wheels that much. Even before the Disney deal was done, James Cameron had confirmed in 2017 that Avatar 2 was going to get a further delay, to add on to it already having been put back an additional year by that point. Now, Avatar 2 was lining up for December 2020, but in truth, few of us were booking the day off work.
In fairness, that date held for a good year or two this time around, but it always felt inevitable that it’d slip.
Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
Over in the land of Indiana Jones, the same problem. This time, it was the case of a director who wasn’t sure whether he wanted to make the film at all. Steven Spielberg had helmed all four Indy films to date, and it was seen as a done deal that he’d be back for this one. But if you want Spielberg, you have to wait for him, and his commitment to the film Ready Player One meant Indy was soon back to the summer of 2020. The bearded director himself then suggested he was ready to start filming in the spring of 2019, yet instead, we got a further postponement. The film was back to the summer of 2021. Avatar 2, meanwhile, had been knocked on to December 2021 in the midst of all of this. Don’t bother trying to keep count of all of these, we’ll total them at the end.
Then the pandemic hit, and more delays followed for both projects. Avatar and its many sequels at least got up and running before the cameras relatively quickly, aided by filming in New Zealand (where lockdowns were relaxed sooner). But there was still time to slip in an eighth delay to Avatar 2’s release in the midst of it all. Now, the film is currently set for December 2022. It’s been a whole year since its last delay was announced, but just typing those words likely tempts fate.
For Indy 5, filming finally began this year too, but – in an added twist – without Steven Spielberg behind the camera. He opted in the end to pass the whip over to James Mangold, the helmer behind recent hits Logan and Le Mans 66. This meant – yes! – another delay to accommodate the change in personnel.
This time, Indy’s return was set for the summer of 2022, and filming got underway earlier this year. However, a fifth change has just been announced, presumably linked to the fact that Harrison Ford has been injured shooting the movie. Now? It’s going to be with us at the end of June 2023, some seven years after it was initially set to be on screens.
Avatar (2009)
By this stage, most of us are treating it as a pleasant surprise if we’ll be alive to see the films eventually make it into cinemas, with a combined 13 postponements between them. In the time since both were announced, we’ve seen Disney+ be announced and come to life, two General Elections, 10 managers of Watford Football Club and the first draft of the Indy 5 script becoming such an antique that we wouldn’t bet against Indy looking for it a sixth film. Still, write both of these franchises off at your peril: but heck, they don’t half life to keep you waiting around…
