Get ready for a lengthy bath. According to insiders, The Hollywood Reporter’s duration for James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water is about three hours and ten minutes, which is appropriate given the 13-year wait for the sequel.
Avatar 2 aspires to join the exclusive group of lengthier Hollywood tentpoles that have achieved box office success in cinemas, such as James Cameron’s Titanic and Avengers: Endgame (three hours and two minutes) (three hours and 14 minutes). On Comscore’s list of the best-grossing movies ever, unadjusted for inflation, the two movies come in at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively.
The original Avatar by James Cameron, which was published in December 2009, is still at the top. That movie was around 29 minutes, or two hours and 41 minutes, shorter than the sequel. Movies have increased longer during the COVID-19 epidemic, with many Hollywood event films running over two hours and 30 minutes, which is considered long by conventional standards. (Sony’s box office smash Spider-Man: No Way Home was an exception; it finished at two hours, 28 minutes, just in time.)
The remainder of the year will see this trend continue. Paramount and director Damien Chazelle’s December tentpole Babylon is at least three hours long. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a Marvel and Disney production that debuts on November 11 run for two hours and 41 minutes. The Batman, a movie by Matt Reeves that debuted earlier this year, lasted two hours and 55 minutes. The length of a movie includes the credits, which can last up to 10 minutes.
The sequel’s official runtime hasn’t yet been disclosed by The Way of Water’s producers, 20th Century and Disney, but after the film obtained a rating, information about its length started to circulate. (The film is classified PG-13 in the United States.) When advertising the rating on their websites, several cinemas unintentionally included the running time.
Disney declined to comment on the Avatar franchise, which it acquired when it acquired 20th Century Fox. At the D23 in early September, director James Cameron streamed in from New Zealand to present a dozen clips from The Way of Water, which he also co-produced with his old Lightstorm collaborator Jon Landau. At the event in person were actors Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, and Zoe Saldana. The video included a lot of Cameron’s detailed underwater work.
To prepare fans for the follow-up, Disney and 20th Century released a remastered edition of the first Avatar not long after D23. The film’s current worldwide box office earnings are more than $2.92 billion thanks to the rerelease, which brought in an astonishing $76 million or more. Sully, played by Worthington, and Neytiri, a Navi woman, star in Way of Water. Following their family, it starts up ten years after the first film and features newcomers to the franchise Vin Diesel and Kate Winslet.
Timed to its global release, Avatar: The Way of Water debuts in North America on December 16.