Mumbai, May 26 (IANS): Director James Cameron, whose 'Avatar: The Way of Water' charmed audience in theatres owing to its exceptional visuals, has shared that his team had to write four movies before he could start the work on 'Avatar: The Way of Water'.

The screenplay, a collaborative effort by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno, captures the essence of the story. With more than 1,500 pages of notes and story beats, Cameron and producer Jon Landau realised that there was more than one story to tell. They brought on an elite group of top Hollywood screenwriters to work with Cameron in transforming his story notes into the four films that would continue the adventures of Jake, Neytiri, and the new family they created together.

Elaborating on the same, James Cameron said: "We had to write four movies before I could start on the first sequel. I wanted to map out all the stories and then get the economy of scale of capturing the actors across multiple films and then filming the live action. The thinking was we could consolidate the different stages of production together - performance capture, live action and then post-production."

The process took months to home in on the exact stories for not just one sequel but for a series of subsequent movies, all wildly ambitious yet all anchored around one central theme: the importance of family.

Returning to reprise their roles, Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana portray Jake Sully and Neytiri, devoted parents doing everything possible to protect their family. Joining them are esteemed actors Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis and Kate Winslet.

'Avatar: The Way of Water' will drop on Disney+ Hotstar on June 7, 2023 in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.