The four sequels to James Cameron’s Avatar, which, as best as we can tell, no one is excited about save for Cameron himself (and even he kept putting off making them) will apparently have a connection to Cameron’s previous monster hit: Titanic star Kate Winslet is set to join the franchise.
Cameron is shooting the second and third films concurrently; they’ll hit theaters in 2020 and 2021. He’ll then take a short break before tackling the fourth and fifth films in the series, which are set for release in 2024 and 2025. The extent of Winslet’s participation in what THR dubs “the Avatar universe” (ugh) is not yet known – we’re not sure how many of those four movies she’ll be in, or if she’s playing one of those big blue cat people or one of the evil humans seeking (snort) “unobtanium.”
One thing we do know: Winslet co-stars in Woody Allen’s forthcoming Coney Island period piece Wonder Wheel, and its first trailer is out today:
It looks amazing – quite literally, the cinematography and production design are straight-up gorgeous, even by the high standards of, respectively, Vittorio Storaro (The Conformist, Apocalypse Now) and Santo Loquasto (Allen’s regular collaborator from Radio Days forward). And the cast is terrific, including not just Winslet but Juno Temple, Justin Timberlake, and the hot-off-Twin-Peaks James Belushi. But Allen’s last few pictures have been increasingly dire, sloppily written and nakedly recycling his earlier successes – and it’s worth noting that this period gangster story looks and sounds an awful lot like his 1994 hit Bullets Over Broadway.
At any rate, we’ll find out if Allen’s losing streak will end when Wonder Wheel closes the New York Film Festival later this month. It will hit theaters in select cities on December 1.