It feels like a long time ago that director James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster Avatar was confirmed to have sequels. Now, more than a decade later, with the original sequel’s release date approaching, Avatar 2 has been given an official title. Avatar: The Way of Water will be the title of the anticipated return to Pandora.
You can check out the film’s title card below:
The news comes from CinemaCon 2022, where the new title was announced at the Walt Disney Studios panel, which also revealed that a teaser trailer will be attached to theatrical screenings of the upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Despite the fact that filming for Avatar 2 began in 2017, little information about the sequel has been revealed. Thanks to set photos posted by Cameron back in December 2020, we’ve known for a while that the film’s setting will be oceanic, but it was through an interview with the film’s producer Jon Landau that we learned that Jake and Neytiri (both characters being reprised by Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana, respectively) will be travelling to an oceanic haven as the RDA mining operations threaten Pandora once again.
Avatar was a film that tapped into the culture at large, and resonated with it in a way that few other films ever had. The film currently sits as the highest-grossing film of all time, with a worldwide gross of over $2.8 billion, however, Avengers: Endgame briefly overtook it.
While Avatar 2 was revealed shortly after the original’s massive success in 2009, three further sequels in the franchise were confirmed in 2015, all of which are being developed at the same time as Avatar 2. However, by that time the original release date in 2015 had been pushed back to 2016.
In the years following, the film has been subjected to numerous delays, notably those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has pushed the current release date to December 16, 2022. Avatar 2 will see the return of Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, and Matt Gerald, in addition to Worthington and Saldana. Kate Winslet, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, and Michelle Yeoh will all make their live-action debuts in the franchise.
‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ will premiere in cinemas on 16 December 2022.
