Avatar was a revolutionary film when it was released, shattering box office expectations by grossing over $2.9 billion globally, remaining well ahead of other juggernauts like Avengers: Endgame and Cameron’s other colossal hit Titanic, even when adjusted for inflation. Moreover, it’s largely responsible for popularizing 3D cinema with its incredible CGI and state-of-the-art filmmaking for the time that required a budget of $237 million without including promotional costs or other factors.
After 13 years of anticipation and speculation, the release of James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel, Avatar : The Way of Water, is just around the corner. The film has released a brand-new featurette, which showcases new footage while promising to be the biggest movie event of this generation. With 13 years of technological advancements since the release of the first movie, the upcoming sequel could offer the same mind-blowing spectacle that captured the imagination of audiences in 2009.
While much of the sequel’s plot remains a mystery, the featurette teases an even larger expansion on Pandora with various new wildlife, environments, and cultures. “The world is bigger. The stakes are higher. He was always looking at everything in wonder,” said Zoe Saldaña, who plays Neytiri in the film. “It was the experience of the first movie, but on steroids.” Whether the film will live up to its hype remains to be seen, however, early reactions to the film are already saying the sequel is better than Avatar. Given what has been revealed so far, Pandora may be worth revisiting after all these years.
Alongside several comments from the cast and crew of the film, the featurette also showcases brand-new footage, such as an epic scene of a whale-like creature, referred to as Tulkun, leaping from the water against the backdrop of a setting sun. New footage of the return of Colonel Miles Quaritch, played again by Stephen Lang, is also shown in the featurette. He will return as a Recombinant, an Avatar clone embedded with the memories of dead soldiers, potentially offering higher stakes against the Na’Vi compared to the first film.
Following the release of Avatar: The Way of Water, producers are planning to release the third film in the franchise, which has already completed principal photography, on December 20, 2024, followed by a fourth and fifth installment, which are currently in production. Should the upcoming sequel prove successful, Avatar could become one of the biggest science fiction franchises of the next decade. With the film being release on 16 December, it won’t be too long before fans can finally step back into the beautiful and mysterious world of Pandora.
