While audiences waited over a decade for Avatar: The Way of Water, director James Cameron already has his sights set on the third chapter. And what epic sights they are. According to noted insider Jeff Sneider (via The Hot Mic podcast), Cameron has now handed in his first cut of Avatar 3...and it clocks in at nine hours.
"[James] Cameron handed in a cut of Avatar 3 last week," Sneider says, before revealing that it runs to a monstrous "nine hours" long. The first Avatar sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, already has a mammoth runtime of 3 hours and 12 minutes, but it’s doubtful that audiences would be able to tolerate sitting in a theater for nine...
Of course, it’s highly unlikely that Avatar 3 will ever come anywhere close to being nine hours long, but Cameron has stated that he wants to complete the movie in its entirety, including all the visual effects work, before cutting it down.
"[Cameron is] insisting on doing the visual effects work for this cut," Sneider reveals, "all nine hours [would] get fully VFX'd" and then the director will "cut it down.”
That means that Avatar 3 is likely to follow in the hugely expensive footsteps of its predecessor, with Cameron completing a nine-hour epic before taking an axe to it and chopping it down to something that general audiences will be able to sit through.
Avatar 3 Could be End of the Franchise if Avatar: The Way of Water Does Not Find Box Office Success
Should Avatar: The Way of Water not find the box office success that it needs, James Cameron has a plan to wrap up with the franchise with a third outing. Meaning that maybe a nine-hour epic will be exactly what Avatar fans want.
"The market could be telling us we're done in three months, or we might be semi-done, meaning: 'Okay, let's complete the story within movie three, and not go on endlessly,' if it's just not profitable,” the filmmaker explained. “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. 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 s*** now?"
Fortunately, it currently looks like Avatar: The Way of Water will be just fine in that regard, with the long-awaited sequel already bringing in around $16 million at the foreign box office.
Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, Avatar: The Way of Water tells the story of the Sully family, the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure. Directed by James Cameron, Avatar: The Way of Water stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Dileep Rao, and Matt Gerald, each of whom will reprise their roles from the original movie, with Sigourney Weaver returning as a new character. New cast members include Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, and Brendan Cowell.
Avatar: The Way of Water is due for release on December 16, 2022. Avatar 3 meanwhile is scheduled to be released on December 20, 2024, with further sequels landing on December 18, 2026, and December 22, 2028, respectively.