Thanks, James Cameron.
It’s been a long, winding decade (and then some) to reach the second Avatar movie, but we’re entering the home stretch. No, perhaps “home stretch” isn’t terminology you’d normally use when there’s still five months left until a movie’s release date, but when it comes to Avatar, a few weeks is nothing. And director James Cameron is wasting no time promoting his Crown Jewel, divulging more and more info about it as if he were a young boy sharing his collection of bugs.
Which is to say: He’s going too far. We know an insufferable amount of information about Avatar: The Way of the Water, and there’s still 24 weeks left in this press tour. We’re averaging three nuggets of information per week, at this point, which means by the time Avatar 2 hits theaters, we’re going to know 72 random facts about the film. That’s 72 too many.
So, to start, we do need the baseline of information—what we should know, going into a film—that Cameron’s given us about The Way of the Water. We have the first trailer, which looks pretty good, where we get to meet Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri’s (Zoe Saldaña) half-Avatar, half-human babies. The movie also takes place more than a decade after the first Avatar, following suit with the film’s actual release pattern.
Need we know more about the second Avatar installation? Yes, apparently we do. James Cameron has seen the amount of press Barbie is getting a year ahead of its release and shuddered at the thought of his dear Avatar earning a lesser spot in the pop culture zeitgeist.
Just head over to the already endless Avatar 2 Wikipedia page, and you’ll get a taste of the vast depths of detail Cameron is pouring out on his new movie. There are already 148 citations about this unreleased movie. (For reference, Babylon, Damien Chazelle’s new movie that releases just two weeks later, has a mere 26 citations.)
And on the second day of November (sung to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas"), Cameron had another gift for all Avatar fans—a brand new trailer. It delves more into the vast landscape of Pandora, introducing viewers to a whole new section of the fantasy land in their underwater lives. But how are we supposed to keep track of old Pandora, new Pandora, and whatever else Cameron creates?
Worry not. You don’t have to scroll through hundreds of articles about Avatar 2 to find out the weirdest of the weird, the most insufferable plot points of all—we have everything bonkers about The Way of the Water right here.
This was most recently updated on Nov. 2, 2022.
- Take That, Maverick: While filming, Kate Winslet held her breath for seven minutes under water. This means she beat Tom Cruise’s record, which was previously set during production for Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation. We’re expecting her to hold this record until 2024, when Cruise drops Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two.
- Sigourney Weaver, Minus 55 Years: Though her character perished in the first film, Sigourney Weaver will still return to Avatar 2. But she’s back as a new character: She’s playing Jake and Neytiri’s adopted teenage daughter, which makes no sense. “We’re gonna have a 60-something actor playing a character [decades younger than]her actual biological age,” Cameron explained, though Weaver is actually 72 now. “Sig thought it was all kinds of fun.”
- Is Avatar 2 a Zombie Movie? Sigourney’s not alone. Several actors whose characters died in the first film will still return to The Way of the Water. Joining Weaver’s baby-woman are Stephen Lang and Matt Gerald, who played Colonel Miles Quaritch and Corporal Lyle Wainfeet, respectively. Now, Quaritch is a pissed off Na’vi, and Wainfeet is back as himself, risen from the dead.
- Sorry, No, Avatar 2 Is Like The Godfather 2: While speaking to Deadline, Cameron said he was “intrigued” by The Godfather, allowing the work to inspire his new line of Avatar films. On the next chapter of the film: “It’s a family drama, so it’s The Godfather.” Sure. Makes complete sense.
- Scratch That. Avatar 2 Is Actually Like Lord of the Rings: What the hell is going on? Isn’t Avatar 2 like Avatar? No, apparently writing these new installations was as tedious as crafting The Lord of the Rings, per James Cameron.
- James Cameron Will Allow You to Use the Bathroom During Avatar 2: Already worried about the trolls and critics—sorry, “not worried”—Cameron opened up to Empire Magazine about the runtime of the film. “I don’t want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [television] for eight hours,” he said. “I can almost write this part of the review. ‘The agonizingly long three-hour movie…’ It’s like, give me a fucking break. I’ve watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row. Here’s the big social paradigm shift that has to happen: it’s okay to get up and go pee.” Okay, I will. Thanks.
- The First Reactions Are In: When Zoe Saldaña saw the first 20 minutes of Avatar: The Way of the Water, she said she was “moved to tears.” If I were an actress in one of the top-grossing movies of all time, when the sequel finally released, I’d cry tears of joy too! Here comes a big paycheck! As audience members, though, I doubt any of us will be moved to tears. This isn’t Marcel the Shell we’re talking about, here—this is blue people swimming.
- What, Exactly, Is the Plot of Avatar 2? Get ready for war. There's another battle headed Jake and Neytiri's way in Avatar 2, as teased by a new trailer released Nov. 2. And it looks like they're going to enlist their children (or, at the very least, protect their children) to help defend Pandora from the evil Colonel Quaritch all over again.
- Meet the Underwater World of Pandora: Also in the new trailer, we get a glimpse of the gorgeous oceanic views in Avatar: The Way of the Water. See the sparkling underwater creatures, as well as the outcome of all that breath-holding we mentioned previously.
