The success of Avatar: The Way of Water ensured audiences can look forward to taking more trips to the world of Pandora. Given the performance of the franchise's second installment – it's the third highest-grossing film of all time, the highest-grossing film of all time in Europe, and the winner of an Oscar Award for Best Visual Effects – Disney's decision is no surprise as it proves that the franchise has massive audience appeal.
Jon Landau, who produces the epic science fiction film alongside creator James Cameron, has revealed that the first act of the franchise's fourth installment has already been shot because it will feature a significant time leap. Landau revealed this at a Q&A session at a press event for Avatar: The Way of Water's home release, saying:
We did 95% of movies two, three, and the first act of part four. Now, why the first act only? Because in our narrative, there's a big time jump there and we needed to do all the kids while they were this age because we can't suddenly have them be older concurrently in our narrative. So we went out and did that all collectively and if we went into a set that had scenes from all three movies, we shot that out at one time."