Avatar 2: The Way of Water hit German cinemas 119 days ago and it’s still running in some of them. Only now does the new film by James Cameron start in a German streaming flat rate. From today you can watch it with a Disney+ subscriptionwhile other films have made that leap in half the time.
But that’s also one of the reasons why the $350 million film was a huge success: Avatar 2 hadn’t been seen in effects for 14 years, so you had to rush to the cinema for the best possible experience. In fact, since Avatar 2009.
You don’t have to have seen Avatar 1 to understand Avatar 2
Avatar: The Way of Water takes place 16 years after the events of the first film. Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) now have a small Na’vi family of their own in the woods of Pandora, but the threat of the invading humans flares up again.
When a sort of Na’vi clone of the villain Quaritch (Stephen Lang) on the hunt for rebel leader Jake they must flee with their children to an alien tribe that lives in harmony with the sea creatures of Pandora. However, Quaritch’s thirst for revenge also drives him to these far corners of the planet.
Disney
Avatar: The Way of Water
Essentially, you don’t need to have seen or remembered Part 1 to understand The Way of Water. There’s even a synopsis of sorts at the beginning of the film to bring the audience up to speed, including an introduction to the new kid characters in Avatar 2 that weren’t in the first installment. Also present: Quaritch’s son of man Spider (Jack Champion), who grows up with the Na’vi.
Why the sci-fi film was so incredibly expensive
At least since Terminator 2 – Judgment Day, James Cameron has regularly broken budget records, but the effort for Avatar: The Way of Water is still impressive. Unlike Ariel, the mermaid or Aquaman, Cameron aimed for the most realistic possible underwater scenes. For this purpose, performance capture suits were used for the first time under water, to turn the actors into Na’vi on the computer. Stars like Kate Winslet had to swim for hours in gigantic water tanks. The Titanic actress even set a record for the longest dive for a movie scene previously held by Tom Cruise.
The budget of an estimated 350 to 400 million dollars did not flow into Avatar 2 alone, since Cameron was also filming the upcoming sequel Avatar 3 at the same time. Among other things, he wanted to prevent the “Stranger Things Effect”, i.e. the rapid aging of his young stars during the breaks in filming.
Disney
Avatar: The Way of Water
Avatar: The Way of Water hit theaters in December 2022 and has grossed $2.3 billion worldwide. It is several hundred million dollars above the break-even point, i.e. the moment when the costs (budget, advertising, share of the cinema operators, etc.) have been recorded and the numbers are in the black. Cameron couldn’t quite beat himself though. The #1 highest grossing film of all time (not adjusted for inflation) is still Avatar, followed by the Marvel film Avengers: Endgame and #3 is The Way of Water.
When is James Cameron’s Avatar 3 coming out?
Avatar 3 will officially release on December 20th, 2024 in German cinemas. It won’t stop there. James Cameron is planning a five-part science fiction series about Pandora, Sully and the Na’vi.
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