The Way Of Water’ as “a staggering achievement”

Guillermo del Toro has delivered the first review of Avatar: The Way Of Water, calling the imminent sequel “a staggering achievement”.

The Way Of Water comes just over 13 years since the original Avatar, which first hit screens on December 10, 2009. The sequel is due out on December 16 and like the first film – as well as the series’ next three films in active development – was written, directed and produced by James Cameron.

Del Toro – who has a storied history with Cameron – tweeted his praise for the film on Twitter, writing that it’s “chokefull of majestic vistas and emotions at an epic, epic scale”. He went on to describe Cameron as “a master at the peak of his powers”.

A staggering achievement- AVATAR TWOW is chokefull of majestic Vistas and emotions at an epic, epic scale. A master at thepeak of his powers… https://t.co/tG6I16JlhM

— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) November 24, 2022

The review comes ahead of del Toro’s own new film, Pinocchio, which is due out on Netflix this Friday (December 9).

Avatar: The Way Of Water has particularly high stakes at the box office. Earlier this week, Cameron described the film’s production cost as “very fucking expensive”, while industry experts have estimated its budget to be somewhere between $350million (£292.4million) and $400million (£334million), easily making it one of the most expensive films of all time.

Adding to the pressure is its runtime; The Way Of Water clocks in at 192 minutes, making it exactly 30 minutes longer than Avatar, as well as the longest Hollywood film to earn a theatrical release since The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (which ran for 201 minutes) in 2003.

Also this week, Cameron dismissed the claim that 2009’s Avatar had no cultural impact, calling that “an irrelevant argument”.