Fans of James Cameron’sAvatarhave waited a long time for the director to finally continue the franchise withAvatar: The Way of Water, which hits cinemas this December. While the first trailer made its debut in cinemas alongsideDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnessat the weekend, it arrived online on Monday and pulled in over 148 million views in its first 24 hours according toThe Hollywood Reporter.
While the numbers for theAvatarsequel’s trailer are huge, overtaking the likes ofBlack Widow, Incredibles 2and evenThe Rise of Skywalker, it still falls some way behindF9’s 202 million orThor: Love and Thunder’s 209 millionand comes nowhere close toSpider-Man: No Way Home’s staggering 355 million. The question now, is just how will this relate to the interest in theAvatarsequel after such a long time has passed since the groundbreaking original movie was released.
Those present at CinemaCon this year were given an early view of the trailer, and James Cameron himself dropped in via an internet link to join the presentation and explain why he believes thatAvatar: The Way of Wateris still the kind of movie that needs to be seen in a theater by everyone. He told the event:
“I want to start out by saying I know it’s been rough on the exhibition community these last two years. I’ve been making movies for 40 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this, not even close to threatening the business that I’ve dedicated my life to. I just want you to hear it from me that John and I are here to work with you. You’re our partners and the best way we can do that is by delivering content that is a must-see experience at the cinema. With the first Avatar we set out to push the limits of the big screen with the new avatar films. We’re pushing those limits even further, with 3d with high dynamic range, with high frame rate, higher resolution, and a much greater reality in our visual effects.”
Related:Avatar 2 Star Zoe Saldaña is Excited & Nervous About Sci-Fi Sequel’s Release
Avatar 2 Is Only The First Step In James Cameron’s Ambitious Avatar Plans
SinceAvatarhit cinemas in 2009 and became the highest grossing movie ever, James Cameron has been working on a total of four sequels. While at times it has been hard to forget this, considering very little has been mentioned about the franchise until the last few years, it seems that the scripts for all four movies have now been mostly complete for around five years. Originally,Avatar 2was supposed to be ready to arrive in cinemas as far back as 2014, then it was pushed back to 2018, with new movies arriving annually after that, and then those dates also fell by the wayside.
In the years between, stars like Zoe Saldana have become heavily involved in other franchises, namelyGuardians of the Galaxyand the MCU in Saldana’s case, and the same was true for other leading cast members such as Sam Worthington. In 2018, after the sequel had been filming almost a year, Cameron revealed the names of all four expected sequels:Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: The Seed Bearer, Avatar: The Tulkun Rider,andAvatar: The Quest for Eywa. So far, from the first of those, the names still hold true.
WithAvatar 2finally now being set to release this year without any further delays, fans who are still waiting on the movie’s arrival will hope that the next sequels don’t take another decade to make it to cinemas.
