Director Wes Ball has revealed the research and development that went into James Cameron's 2022 'Avatar' sequel paved the way for the CGI water used in the first flick in a new trilogy in the sci-fi action series.
The filmmaker told ComicBook.com: "We could not have done water if they hadn't done a major kind of R and D on Avatar: The Way of Water. And we took that and went further with it."
He continued: "There's about 30 to 35 minutes minutes of full CG in the movie. I mean, everything is CG. That means every piece of bark, every leaf blowing in the wind is full CG. So that's new for this move, this franchise. There are sets we just could not build, it was not possible, we couldn't afford to do it, we didn't have time to do it. So I hope for the audiences it will just go right by them. They won't see that. But I'm really proud of some of that stuff where it's like you cannot tell this is all CG."
Ball insists it will "take time" to make further movies in the franchise, because the quality will take precedence over speed in terms of future flicks.
He told the outlet: "It'll take as long as it takes. Fortunately, because this franchise is important to the studio, we'll get it right like we did this one, took our time and got it right.
"It takes time, the development itself, and my big thing is I do not want to go into prep when the script is not done. I've had to do that in the past. Nothing good comes from that."
He continued: "That's one of the biggest things that movies could be doing right now is stop doing that. We'd save a ton of money.
"I think on this one that we are in good, good shape. Fortunately, we were thinking a lot about these questions when we were developing this script."
The director explained that there is "lots of room for great drama" in the wake of the new movie - which sees Owen Teague taking over the lead role as chimpanzee Noa.
He said: "We have an idea where we wanna go and there's lots of room for great drama. Literally, doors have opened at the end of this movie that hopefully reveal a much larger world that we get to explore in this movie, full of drama, full of conflict, all that kind of stuff. Fingers crossed. We'll see."