James Cameron Reveals Avatar: The Way of Water's Insanely Long Runtime

Walt Disney Studios is getting ready to unleash the long-awaited sequel to 2009's Avatar next month, and everyone wants to know if the film will have the same legs as the first one. Avatar has been the highest grossing film of all time for over 10 years, with Avenger: Endgame being the only film to temporarily dethrone it. The studio is banking on the franchise to return to form, but it seems like a risky bet to place on the sequel, especially after hearing the runtime. Avatar: The Way of Water will feature a duration of three hours and ten minutes long, and director James Cameron has rushed in to defend his films runtime. During a recent interview with Total Film Magazine (via Game Rant), Cameron defended why the sequel is so long.

"The goal is to tell an extremely compelling story on an emotional basis," Cameron told the magazine. "I would say the emphasis in the new film is more on character, more on story, more on relationships, more on emotion. We didn't spend as much time on relationship and emotion in the first film as we do in the second film, and it's a longer film, because there's more characters to service. There's more story to service."

Cameron has been developing sequels to his record-breaking film for over a decade. The studio has announced four sequels to Avatar, with two already filmed, and the other two are waiting to see how the first does at the box office. The director shot both sequels back to back due to how the scenes they needed to film for both. About a year ago, Cameron confirmed to Variety why he shot the films this way.

"We mixed the schedules for 2 and 3 together, based on the types of scenes and the environments," Cameron revealed to the trade. "I said, let's just treat it like it's a six-hour miniseries and we're only going to go to Frankfurt once. We're going to shoot all the scenes from 2 and 3 at the same time. That was more or less the motif. Actor availability was an issue as well. Anything that had to be done with a specific actor, we did all the scenes for 2 and 3 together — and a little bit of 4. Because once again, I had to shoot the kids out. They're allowed to age six years in the middle of the story on page 25 of movie 4. So I needed everything before then, and then everything after, we'll do later."

The sequel is confirmed to feature several returning stars that include Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stepehn Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, CCH Pounder, Matt Gerald, and Sigourney Weaver. The cast for the sequels will include several more newcomers than returning members, though, with the likes of Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Michelle Yeoh, Jemaine Clement, Oona Chaplin, David Thewlis, Vin Diesel, and CJ Jones all set to appear as well. Plot details for the sequels are currently unknown.

Avatar: The Way of Water is set to arrive on December 16, 2022, with Avatar 3 set to debut two years later on December 20, 2024.

What do you think about the runtime? Let us know in the comments below or by hitting up our writer @NateBrail on Twitter!

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