'Avatar: The Way Of Water' Screenwriters Talk About Splitting Script Into 2 Films Due To 'Too Much Material'

There was too much material for the "Avatar" sequel that its director, James Cameron, decided to split it into two films.

Screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver recounted the time James Cameron approached them to work on the sequel of the hit 2009 sci-fi action movie. The married screenwriters, who were also behind 2011's "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "Jurrasic World," were hired by Cameron for a multi-film cinematic saga over three more movies. Cameron assembled a team of screenwriters to help Jaffa and Silver with the job, including Josh Friedman ("War of the Worlds") and Shane Salerno ("Savages").

They spent the first two weeks talking about the 2009 "Avatar" and breaking down why the audience loved it, making it the highest-grossing movie of all time. Cameron handed every scriptwriter "three or four binders" of notes, roughly 800 pages in all, with his ideas for the next movies.

"We went through it with him, very slowly and carefully," Jaffa told Variety. "We were invited into his mind, his left brain and his right brain, and to just kind of dive in and immerse ourselves in the world that he'd created in the first movie."

Silver added, "He had let himself just kind of jot down all his dreams and thoughts about different Na'vi worlds and possibilities of all these characters and creatures. So he hadn't made himself organize it yet. The writers room was the time to organize."

They had a lot of ideas for the "Avatar" franchise when they started their research, mapped out the characters, created the story arcs and went back and forth to it. Jaffa said "there was so much material" that large whiteboards filled the room. However, having too much material also became challenging to them until Cameron decided to split it into multiple films.

"From the beginning, one of the challenges — I'll say it was a delicious challenge — is that there was too much material," Silver said.

"Carrying this burden was always an issue in terms of getting the first act of that first movie moving, and there was just an enormous amount of material in there," she added. "So somewhere after we had started writing, [Cameron] called us up and he said, 'Look, we've got too much material. We're going to split it into two movies.'"

The couple offered to cut down the script, but the director reportedly refused.

"He was like, 'No, let's just follow the trail that we created and keep writing,'" Jaffa shared.

Cameron officially decided to split "Avatar 2" into two movies, which according to Jaffa "has worked out great for us." Friedman and Salerno's movies were pushed into the future to be "Avatar 4" and "Avatar 5." Jaffa and Silver were adding "Avatar 3" to their plate.

Edie Falco, one of the new cast members, thought the film was already released and didn't do well because she hadn't heard anything about it. According to Falco, she filmed "Avatar 2" over four years ago, before the pandemic.

"I saw the first one when it was out," the four-time Emmy winner shared when she appeared on ABC's "The View." "The second 'Avatar' I shot four years ago. And then I've been busy, I'm doing stuff, and then somebody mentioned 'Avatar,' and I thought, 'Oh, I guess it came out, and it didn't do very well because I didn't hear anything about it.'"

"It happens! Someone recently said, 'Avatar' is coming out,' and I said, 'Oh, it hasn't come out yet?' I will never work again because I said that," she added.

"Avatar: The Way of Water" is now in theaters.