The highly-anticipated sequel is the film Gen Z moviegoers are prioritizing this holiday season.
It has been 13 years since the release of James Cameron’s Avatar, so naturally, the science-fiction extravaganza’s upcoming sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water is attracting quite a lot of attention ahead of its December 16 release in cinemas. The continuation of Cameron’s storytelling in the faraway moon of Pandora is so hotly anticipated that it has become the most in-demand movie for a whole demographic of cinema-goers — namely the Gen-Z (18-24) demographic, according to a Fandango survey.
The study — in which there were 1000 participants — reported that out of the incoming movies that will be getting a wide release across all theatres this holiday season, Avatar: The Way of Water is the film that the Gen-Z demographic wants to see the most ahead of Disney Animation’s Strange World, Paramount’s Babylon, Universal/Blumhouse’s Violent Night and Dreamworks Animation’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
Director James Cameron will no doubt be hoping that this survey is a true indication of Avatar: The Way of Water’s box-office potential, given the fact that its predecessor, Avatar, is officially the highest-grossing film of all time with a staggering return of $2.905 billion. Cameron has recently gone on record to state that should the new sequel underperform at the box office, he will shelve the entire franchise after Avatar 3 — which has completed principal photography ahead of an expected December 20, 2024 release — thus scrapping any plans to go ahead and produce the expected fourth and fifth films he had planned in the franchise.
Given that Gen-Z audiences would have been pre-teens when Avatar was released in 2009, there is perhaps a strong case of nostalgia working in Avatar: The Way of Water’s favor, which sees Sam Worthington return as Jake Sully, and Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri, the pair now parents to three children as the story picks up a decade after the events of Avatar. In Avatar: The Way of Water, Jake and Neytiri are forced to flee their rainforest home for the oceans of Pandora to help keep their family safe as a threat emerges.
Will Avatar: The Way of Water prove to be a hit with young adults when it is released across theatres on December 16? Cameron, Worthington, Saldaña, and fellow franchise returnees Giovanni Ribisi, Sigourney Weaver, and Stephen Lang will be keeping their fingers crossed that it does. You can watch the trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water down below.
