Avatar: The Way of Water’s runtime has been revealed, and it is quite long. According to sources, The Hollywood Reporter informed that James Cameron’s return to the big screen and the follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2009 film Avatar will run for three hours and 10 minutes, or 190 minutes. At 162 minutes in length, the original was also rather terrifying. Given that Cameron’s 1997 picture Titanic had a running time of 195 minutes, this is not very unusual for him. Additionally, despite having lengthy runtimes, his films’ box office success seems unaffected by them, and he is able to keep audiences’ interest during those protracted lengths.
Cameron said in an exclusive interview with Empire Magazine, “I don’t want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch for eight hours. 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.”
One of James Cameron’s longest theatrical productions, Avatar: The Way of Water could run for 3 hours and 10 minutes, trailing only Titanic’s theatrical edit of 3 hours and 14 minutes. The theatrical runtime of the first Avatar movie was 2 hours and 42 minutes, so its sequel has the opportunity to fully embrace Pandora’s immersive nature while delivering a bigger feeling of scale in its narrative. It will be interesting to see if audiences can endure the lengthy theatrical runtime. However, it’s probable that many fans won’t mind sticking in Pandora for a little bit longer if the response to the first movie is any indicator.
Avatar: The Way of Water, the long-awaited sequel to the popular movie, will focus on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaa) and their family as they battle the RDA’s comeback and run across the Metkayina clan while exploring Pandora’s stunning oceans. While the film’s particular narrative is still a secret, more information will probably become known once the marketing campaign for the upcoming sequel gets under way in preparation for its December release. It won’t be long until fans get to return to Pandora and relive the sensation of amazement and wonder that resonated with them from the original movie after 13 years of development and production for the much anticipated sequel.