Audiences likely are going to need a serious refresher course on the world of Avatar when James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel Avatar 2 arrives in theaters on December 16, 2022. After all, the franchise has been largely removed from the public eye following its celebrated run back in 2009. It’s odd that Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all time, still, because in the years that followed its release, superhero movies have become all the rage. If anyone can swing us back to the sci-fi spectacle of Pandora, it’s blockbuster storyteller James Cameron. But the studio is going to need to use the bulk of 2022 to re-educate audiences on this universe, to get them amped for the sequel.
One such piece that’s beginning to revive the lore arrived in Empire Magazine, where Avatar 2 producer Jon Landau introduced audiences to a new character named Miles Socorro, aka Spider. This human child will be the adopted son of Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). But because of his origin and roots, he creates tension in the assembled family of Jake and Neytiri. As Landau explained it to Empire:
Jake took him in, but Neytiri always saw him as one of those people who destroyed her home and killed her father. So you have all these dynamics playing out.
This is because Spider was born on the military base that occupied the forces that were doing everything in their power to harvest the valuable resources of Pandora. Naturally, Miles was a baby when this was happening, so he has no vested interest in the power grab conducted by the human characters in the original Avatar. But it will be up to Jake to convince Neytiri that Spider is closer in character to him – a sympathetic figure to the plight of the Na’vi – then he is to the militaristic humans from Avatar.
It should help that Spider is one of several children in the clan created by Jake and Neytiri. When Avatar 2 opens in theaters, we’ll also meet the Na’vi children that the couple preside over, including Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), and Tuktirey (Trinity Bliss). But all of this is part of James Cameron’s approach to the sequels, as Landau promises a focus on family, in addition to the requisite spectacle. He tells Empire:
If you look at what Jim does in his movies, he writes in universal themes that are bigger than the genre of any one movie. This time around, we’re taking Jake and Neytiri and building the most universal theme of all around them. Which is family. Jake comes from the human world, Neytiri from the Na’vi world. So, they’re like a modern mixed-race couple, raising kids who perhaps feel they don’t belong to one world or another.
There are all sorts of conflicts that can stem from that, and we’ll start to see how it all plays out once Avatar 2 opens in theaters in December. It’s the first four Avatar sequels that Cameron wants to bring to theaters, so I sure hope people like it.