You might want to rethink that large soda before taking your seat for Avatar: The Way of Water this December, because James Cameron's upcoming sequel is gonna be a long one!
Confirming a rumor that did the rounds last night, THR has revealed that the sequel will clock in at a whopping 3 hours, 10 minutes (including credits).
Though there's a common misconception that Cameron's original 2009 blockbuster was three hours long, it was actually only 2 hours, 41 minutes. The director's other money-spinning phenomenon, Titanic, did surpass the three-hour mark, as did Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame.
What did those movies have in common? They all took in obscene amounts of cash at the box office despite their butt-numbing run-times, so there's no reason to think The Way of Water will be any different.
During a recent interview with The New York Times, Cameron revealed that 20th Century Fox execs wanted to trim down Avatar's run-time by removing a key sequence, but he refused to budge.
“I think I felt, at the time, that we clashed over certain things,” said the legendary filmmaker. “For example, the studio felt that the film should be shorter and that there was too much flying around on the ikran — what the humans call the banshees. Well, it turns out that’s what the audience loved the most, in terms of our exit polling and data gathering. And that’s a place where I just drew a line in the sand and said, ‘You know what? I made ‘Titanic.’ This building that we’re meeting in right now, this new half-billion dollar complex on your lot? ‘Titanic’ paid for that, so I get to do this.’”
What do you guys think? Have you been put off by this mammoth run-time, or does it not make a difference to you one way or the other?
Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, Avatar: The Way of Water begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), 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 and produced by Cameron and Jon Landau, the film stars Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement and Kate Winslet.
Avatar: The Way of Water is set to hit theaters in December 16th, 2022.