Likely as his other previous blockbuster works, James Cameron delivers the upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water with a runtime of 3 hours. 3 hours and 10 minutes to be more precise. The Hollywood Reporter advises moviegoers to prepare for the long soak. Comicbookmovie.com corroborates that people need to think twice about taking extra large drinks to the theaters.
At this rate, we would have to agree. Given the filmmaker’s track record, viewers can expect a full length feature film to every sense of the word. Cameron most probably opted to maximize all 13 years of wait from the fans. The wait requires an absolute feast to the eyes as Cameron built the world of Pandora more than a decade ago.
Having the theatrical rating of PG-13, more people can be able to see this on the big screen. Indeed, people would be able to bring their families with them to watch the sequel. However, for everyone’s notice, please make the necessary arrangements to go through the whole movie of 3+hours comfortably.
James Cameron Delivers Avatar The Way Of Water At 3-Hour Run
Image: 20th Century Studios
As the streaming and home video options nowadays offer relatively the same length of run time, people expect more than two hours watch for a ticket they purchase. Understandably so, due to the global pandemic, leaving the house, let alone with family, could be considered a major activity for everyone. Thus, the longer run time makes every moment count.
Yet, even before the pandemic, people already know Cameron to clock in longer run times for his films. His first Avatar movie runs for almost 3 hours. That is, 2 hours and 41 minutes. Titanic which ran in theaters for months went for over 3 hours as well. 20th Century and Disney finally backs this runtime up and hopefully the movie is on a pace that would feel like those hours would fly by.
On the other hand, Disney, through Marvel Studios, has been releasing rather longer run time movies compared before. Indeed, run times are getting longer and longer allowing for more elements of the story to take the spotlight.
Cameron shared that initially 20th Century executives wanted to cut down the runtime. In order to achieve this, they wanted to remove a specific key sequence. To which, Cameron did not abide. Sticking to his guns, Cameron keeps the story he wants to tell the way he wants to tell it. Confidently he said:
I think I felt, at the time, that we clashed over certain things. 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.
James Cameron Delivers Avatar The Way Of Water At 3-Hour Run
Image: 20th Century Studios
To prepare the audiences to the upcoming sequel, 20th Century re-released the first Avatar in remastered version. The studio delights in the fact that the re-release got them almost $80 million at the World Wide Box Office. This brings the movie’s gross to almost $3 billion.
While the first movie showcased land and aerial scapes of Pandora, the sequel boasts Cameron’s filmmaking feats in showing underwater scenes.
The Avatar: The Way of Water stars Sam Worthington as Sully, and Zoe Saldana as Neytiri. Meanwhile, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang also comes back for the sequel. In addition, new actors in the second movie are Vin Diesel and Kate Winslet.
Finally, Avatar: The Way of Water dives into theaters on December 16, 2022.
