‘Avatar: The Way of Water’: Plot, Release Date, Cast, Movie Trailer

It’s been 13 years since James Cameron’s “Avatar” revolutionized the film landscape and topped the history-making box office charts. Now, the long-awaited sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” is finally about to flow into theaters on December 16.

The sequel tells the story of the Sully family — Jake, Neytiri, and their children — as their land becomes torn apart. Per an official synopsis, the Sully family endures danger, battles to the death, and tragedy throughout the film. The couple are displaced from their homes and flee to the Metkayina’s waterworld, which disrupts tribal politics. Cameron directs the feature and produces alongside Jon Landau.

Original stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana reprise their respective roles as Jake and Neytiri, with Sigourney Weaver also returning. Franchise newcomers Kate Winslet and Michelle Yeoh also enter the mysterious world of Pandora in yet-undisclosed roles. Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, and Jemaine Clement also star in the ensemble film.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” Runtime Is Over 3 Hours

Only four minutes shorter than James Cameron’s “Titanic,” upcoming film “Avatar: The Way of Water” boasts a three-hour and 10 minutes runtime, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. To note, the original “Avatar” film, released in 2009, was two hours and 41 minutes, almost exactly 30 minutes less than its follow-up epic.

“Avatar” Will Be Back in Theaters First

To fully untangle the Pandora’s box worth of plot twists, original film “Avatar” will be re-released in theaters September 23 to drum up excitement for the sequel, out December 16. The first “Avatar” movie made history, grossing $2 billion, and will now be released with a 4K high dynamic range restoration.

While the original first look at “Avatar 2” was unveiled in January 2020, the pandemic pushed back its release date. Cameron credited Marvel movies for ushering in the return to theaters and promised “Avatar 2” would not debut on streaming.

“Everybody makes a big deal out of [the box office battle], but the truth is what we really need to focus on is getting back to theaters,” Cameron said in April 2021. “Hopefully we can still have movies like that, ‘Endgame’ and ‘Avatar’ and the big Marvel movies and all that, movies that are able to make $1 billion or $2 billion.”

The Oscar winner added, “Let’s pray that movie theaters are still there after this pandemic and after this shift towards streaming, not that I have anything against streaming. There’s great writing and great shows in [streaming], but let’s remember that movie theaters are a sacred experience for all of us. Let’s get back out there when it’s safe to do so.”

Later at 2022 CinemaCon, Cameron promised “The Way of Water” will wow on the big screen.

“I know it’s been rough on the exhibition community these last two years,” Cameron said of theaters amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “I just want you to hear it from me that [producer Jon Landau] and I are here to work with you, you’re our partners, and the best way we can do that is delivering content that is a must-see experience at the cinema.”

“The Way of Water” Has a New Environmental Message

Aside from Jake and Neytiri’s love story and the conflict at the heart of the sweeping sci-fi epic, “The Way of Water” will pivot the message of climate change to promote ocean conservation. Whereas the first film dealt more with the dangers of deforestation, the sequel channels Cameron’s personal passion for oceanography.

“I do the ocean thing when I’m not making movies,” Cameron previously told Entertainment Weekly. “So if I could combine my two greatest loves — one of which is ocean exploration; the other, feature filmmaking — why wouldn’t I?”

Kate Winslet and Sigourney Weaver Held Their Breath Underwater for Over Five Minutes

Cameron had no desire to film “dry for wet” for ocean scenes, and instead opted to be as authentic as possible. Thus, the entire cast was instructed in professional scuba diving. Cameron also developed new technology in order to film motion capture scenes underwater, something never previously achieved. But to capture actors being underwater, there was nothing better than the real thing.

“I said, ‘It’s not going to work. It’s not going to look real,’” Cameron said. “I even let them run a test, where we captured dry for wet, and then we captured in water, a crude level of our in-water capture. And it wasn’t even close.”

Actress Weaver was able to hold her breath for over six minutes, with co-star Winslet not breathing for over seven minutes. “One of my favorite memories was we had this circular tank, maybe 40 feet wide, with a big glass portal in it. I walked by one day and I see Kate Winslet walking on the bottom of the tank,” producer Jon Landau explained. “She’s walking towards me and sees me in the window, and she just waves, gets to the end of the wall, turns around, and walks all the way back.”

Winslet called being underwater for that long “the most amazing thing for me as a middle-aged woman” since she was able to “learn something not just new, but superhuman.”

James Cameron Says Experiencing the Lush World of Pandora in Theaters Will Be Like “Dreaming with Your Eyes Wide Open”

Leave it to Cameron to hype up his own movie. The writer/director explained that when crafting “Avatar: The Way of Water,” the first tier of storytelling relied on the “surface story, which is just the plot,” followed by the thematic “spiritualism and the themes of capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, human rights abuses, and nature deficit disorder” layered on top. The third tier, however, proved to be the most essential to Cameron.

“There was a tertiary level as well, and we were all in unison about it, but there was a level that was dreamlike that you could not express in a sentence,” Cameron said on “The Marianne Williamson Podcast” last year. “It didn’t have any ‘-isms’ to it, it was a dreamlike sense of a yearning to be there, to be in that space, to be in a place that is safe and where you wanted to be. Whether that was flying, that sense of freedom and exhilaration, or whether it’s being in the forest where you can smell the earth. It was a sensory thing that communicated on such a deep level. That was the spirituality of the first film.”

He added that a lot of the plot ideas were shut down for the third, fourth, and fifth upcoming “Avatar” installments because they didn’t capture the same level of third tier magic. “We created and rejected many storylines for the second and third film because they didn’t take us to that transportive, dreaming-with-your-eyes-wide-open feeling,” Cameron summed up.

Zoe Saldaña Endured “Months of Training” in “Humbling” Transformation Back Into Role of Neytiri

Lead actress Saldaña called returning for “Avatar: The Way of Water” a “nerve-wracking” experience due to the success of the first film. “Humbling as well, you know — the wait is finally over,” she added, via Entertainment Weekly. “And we get to share something that we love so much with so many people that we know love it, too.”

Saldaña detailed what it took to turn back into Neytiri for the big screen. “It’s more of a practice. It’s months of training, not just rehearsing with your director, but training with movement coaches, and traveling to the jungle and getting to feel what it’s like to make your own food with all the elements that are around you,” the “Guardians of the Galaxy” star explained. “And once you use all of that, you do bring it into what we call the volume, which is the set, when you shoot under performance-capture.”