James Cameron said he gave 'Avatar 2' writers 800 pages of notes to read on his first day working with them

• James Cameron said he gave 'Avatar 2' writers 800 pages of notes before they worked on the movie.
• The director told ScreenRant Friday he wrote the development notes for the film over six months.
• Cameron said he told the writers to "do your homework, and then we'll talk."

James Cameron said he gave 800 pages of notes to the "Avatar: The Way of Water" writers on the first day he worked with them.

The acclaimed director spoke with ScreenRant for an interview published Friday about developing the upcoming sequel. The science fiction epic is set to hit theaters on December 16.

After writing the first "Avatar" film alone, according to IMDb, Cameron told the outlet he knew he wanted to work with a team of writers for the second movie. He said he spent six months writing the notes, developing the franchise's fictional planet Pandora, the plot, and new characters along the way.

"I walked in on the first day with the whole writers' room, and I plopped down 800 pages of notes, single-spaced," Cameron said. "I said, 'Do your homework, and then we'll talk.'"

Once the group read the notes and reconvened, the filmmaker said he "challenged" the writers to think about what worked in the first movie, which was released in 2009. He later told them that they would fail if they couldn't connect with the hearts and minds of viewers.

"'Before we start talking about new stories, let's figure out how the first story worked. What were people keying into, what was working for them?' We had a lot of discussions about that, and every idea we came up with as we went along had to measure up against that standard," he told ScreenRant.

"Avatar: The Way of Water" is the second of five movies planned for the franchise, which the third film scheduled to release in December 2024. Although the final two movies are already in development, Cameron told Total Film in November that he's prepared to cut the series of films short if they don't perform well at the box office.

"The market could be telling us we're done in three months, or we might be semi-done, meaning: 'OK, let's complete the story within movie three, and not go on endlessly,' if it's just not profitable," he said.

The director also noted the changes the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of streaming made to the theatrical landscape since the release of the first film.

"We're in a different world now than we were when I wrote this stuff, even. It's the one-two punch — the pandemic and streaming," he told the publication. "Or, conversely, maybe we'll remind people what going to the theater is all about. This film definitely does that. The question is: how many people give a shit now?"