After 13 years of anticipation and speculation, the release of James Cameron‘s long-awaited sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, is just around the corner. In celebration of its 10-day countdown, the film has released a brand-new featurette, which showcases new footage while promising to be the biggest movie event of this generation.
“I went to the studio and said, ‘Let’s not just do another movie. Let’s swing for the fences,'” Cameron said on the sequel’s ambition. Similar to the first film, Avatar: The Way of Water will continue to push the envelope in special effects with the implementation of underwater motion capture technology. With 13 years of technological advancements since the release of the first movie, the upcoming sequel could offer the same mind-blowing spectacle that captured the imagination of audiences in 2009.
While much of the sequel’s plot remains a mystery, the featurette teases an even larger expansion on Pandora with various new wildlife, environments, and cultures. “The world is bigger. The stakes are higher. He was always looking at everything in wonder,” said Zoe Saldaña, who plays Neytiri in the film. “It was the experience of the first movie, but on steroids.” Whether the film will live up to its hype remains to be seen; however, early reactions to the film are already saying the sequel is better than Avatar. Given what has been revealed so far, Pandora may be worth revisiting after all these years.
Alongside several comments from the cast and crew of the film, the featurette also showcases brand-new footage, such as an epic scene of a whale-like creature, referred to as Tulkun, leaping from the water against the backdrop of a setting sun. New footage of the return of Colonel Miles Quaritch, played again by Stephen Lang, is also shown in the featurette. He will return as a Recombinant, an Avatar clone embedded with the memories of dead soldiers, potentially offering higher stakes against the Na’Vi compared to the first film.
Following the release of Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron plans to release the third film in the franchise, which has already completed principal photography, on December 20, 2024, followed by a fourth and fifth installment, which are currently in production. Should the upcoming sequel prove successful, Avatar could become one of the biggest science fiction franchises of the next decade. With the film only ten days away from its official release, it won’t be too long before fans can finally step back into the beautiful and mysterious world of Pandora.
With tickets now on sale, Avatar: The Way of Water splashes exclusively into theaters on December 16. Check out the brand-new featurette for the film below: