Avatar: The Way of Water

• 1. Introduction

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  Avatar: The Way of Water, James Cameron's 2022 science fiction sequel, contains an underwater scene for which Kate Winslet held her breath for more than seven minutes. That broke the record for a breath hold during a filmed scene, which Tom Cruise had set while shooting Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation in 2015. She was not alone in this training, because many of the cast learned to free dive. Engineers rebuilt motion capture so it could work below the surface, and a global pandemic interrupted production in the middle. The budget was an estimated $350-460 million, which places the film among the most expensive ever made. Why did it take so long to follow the 2009 original? How do you film actors underwater when your sensors refuse to work there? And did the finished film earn its price tag?

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• 2. A Family in Flight

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  Sixteen years after the Na'vi drove the Resources Development Administration, or RDA, from Pandora, Jake Sully is chief of the Omatikaya clan. He and his wife Neytiri have two sons, Neteyam and Lo'ak, and a daughter, Tuktirey, called Tuk. Their adopted daughter Kiri was born from the inert avatar of Dr. Grace Augustine. A human boy named Miles Socorro, nicknamed Spider, plays with the Sully children. He is the son of the dead Colonel Miles Quaritch and is raised by human scientists who stayed on Pandora.

  Colonel Quaritch returns in a new form when the RDA comes back to colonize Pandora. Some of the colonists are recombinants, Na'vi avatars implanted with the memories of dead human soldiers, and Quaritch is one of them. While Jake runs a guerrilla campaign, Quaritch searches for his headquarters. His team captures Jake's children, and Jake and Neytiri free them. Quaritch also captures Spider and recognizes him as his son. When questioning fails, Quaritch spends time with the boy instead, and Spider teaches him Na'vi language and culture.

  Worried that Spider's knowledge could lead Quaritch to the Omatikaya, Jake takes his family to Pandora's eastern sea. The aquatic Metkayina clan grants them asylum there. Tonowari, the Metkayina chief, has a daughter named Tsireya, who befriends Lo'ak, and a son named Aonung, who does not. Aonung and his friends lure Lo'ak on a hunting trip and strand him in a dangerous stretch of water. A shark-like predator attacks, and a Tulkun named Payakan saves him. Tulkun are highly intelligent, whale-like creatures, and Payakan turns out to be an exile among his own kind.

  Kiri's story darkens at the Metkayina's underwater Spirit Tree. She meets her mother Grace in a vision, then suffers a seizure and nearly drowns. Jake's scientist friends Norm Spellman and Max Patel diagnose epilepsy. They warn that linking with the tree again could kill her.

  Quaritch eventually tracks the aircraft of Norm and Max to the Metkayina archipelago. He commandeers a ship that hunts Tulkun, and when the Na'vi will not talk, he burns their dwellings. Lo'ak learns from Payakan why the other Tulkun cast him out. He attacked humans who had killed his mother, which broke the Tulkun vow of pacifism. Quaritch knows the Metkayina share a spiritual bond with the Tulkun. He orders hunts close to their villages to draw Jake into the open.

  The confrontation costs the Sullys their eldest son. Lo'ak and several other children try to warn Payakan, who has been tagged for capture. They help him escape but are caught by Quaritch's team. Payakan then attacks the ship, and a battle breaks out between the Metkayina and Quaritch's forces. During the escape, Neteyam is fatally shot. Enraged, Jake and Neytiri fight on, and Jake strangles Quaritch unconscious. Spider pulls Quaritch from the water but refuses to stay with him.

  After Neteyam's funeral, Jake tells Tonowari that the family will leave the Metkayina. Tonowari answers that they are already part of the clan and welcome to stay. Jake decides he cannot keep running from Quaritch and the RDA, which sets up the next film in the series.

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• 3. A Sequel in Waiting

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  In 2006, three years before the first Avatar reached theaters, Cameron said he would consider making two sequels if it succeeded. He had already placed scenes in that film that later stories could use. By 2010 he said the sequels would go ahead. They would visit other nearby moons, and he hoped to gather footage at the bottom of the Mariana Trench using a deepwater submersible. The environmental theme would continue, but Cameron promised it would not be "strident". He planned to shoot the films back-to-back at a frame rate above the industry standard of 24 frames per second. Release dates of 2014 and 2015 were set.

  Those dates slipped again and again. In 2012 Cameron first mentioned a possible third sequel, and he confirmed it the following year. By August 2013 his plan called for Avatar 2 in 2016, with the others in 2017 and 2018. In 2015 the complicated writing pushed each release back by a year, and the first sequel was slated for December 2017. At CinemaCon in April 2016, Cameron announced that there would be four sequels, all filmed at the same time.

  New Zealand became the production's home in 2013. The agreement with its government required at least one world premiere in Wellington. It also required at least NZ$500 million, roughly US$410 million, of production spending in the country. In return, the government announced it would raise its baseline filmmaking tax rebate from 15% to 20%, with 25% available to international productions in some cases.

  Four screenwriters were announced in 2013: Josh Friedman, Shane Salerno, and the team of Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. Each was to co-write one sequel with Cameron, but at first all of them worked on every script. Cameron waited as long as he could to assign them, so they would keep the larger story in view. At one point he threatened to fire them for not studying why the original had been so popular. He considered that study essential. In 2012 he had described the sequels as separate stories joined by "an overall arc inclusive of the first film", with this second film ending clearly rather than on a cliffhanger.

  Cameron also wrote alone. He spent a year on a 130-page script titled Avatar: The High Ground, then threw it out. It lacked the spiritual element behind the first film's success, and it had too few surprises. The story lived on as a comic book series set between Avatar and The Way of Water.

  In February 2017 Cameron announced that all four scripts were finished, after roughly four years of writing. For this film he built the story around Jake and Neytiri becoming parents. In the first Avatar, Cameron said, Jake could act recklessly because he had no family. Now Jake had to ask whether to shield his sons or let them fight. Telling that story required young performers who could work underwater.

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• 4. Choosing the Cast

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  Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña signed on for future sequels at the moment they were cast in the first Avatar. In the years after, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang were confirmed to return, even though their characters had died in that film. Cameron revealed that Quaritch would be the main antagonist across all four films and would evolve in "unexpected" ways. In a December 2019 interview, Lang said Cameron had always meant for Quaritch to come back, even while the first film was shooting. Weaver would return as Grace Augustine and also play Kiri.

  Michelle Rodriguez announced in 2015 that she would not return for Avatar 2. Several cast announcements followed in 2017. Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder and Matt Gerald were confirmed to come back. Cliff Curtis joined as Tonowari, leader of the reef clan called the Metkayina.

  That September, seven child actors were announced. Jamie Flatters, Britain Dalton and Trinity Bliss would play Jake and Neytiri's children. Filip Geljo, Bailey Bass and Duane Evans Jr. would play Metkayina children. Jack Champion would play a human born on Pandora. The young actors spent six months training for underwater performance capture, and eventually each could hold a breath for 2-4 minutes. Kirk Krack, founder of Performance Freediving International, worked as the free-diving trainer for cast and crew.

  In October 2017, Giovanni Ribisi was announced to reprise Parker Selfridge in all four sequels. The same month, Kate Winslet was reported to have joined as a character named Ronal. Cameron said that working with Winslet on Titanic was a highlight of his career. The two had long hoped to collaborate again. Winslet hesitated, though, because of the rigorous situations Cameron creates for his actors. She found her role strong and well written.

  Dileep Rao was confirmed as Dr. Max Patel in January 2018. A year later Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell and Jemaine Clement joined the live-action cast. Marc Maron auditioned for Clement's part, and Edward Norton turned down an undisclosed role. Behind the camera, the crew included cinematographer Russell Carpenter, who had worked with Cameron on True Lies and Titanic, and art director Aashrita Kamath. One last cameo came from Oliver, the infant son of Joel David Moore, who filmed a brief appearance as baby Neteyam.

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• 5. Underwater Capture

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  Preliminary shooting began on the 15th of August 2017, with Manhattan Beach, California, as the main location. Principal photography started on the 25th of September, and the crew filmed Avatar: Fire and Ash at the same time. Some scenes ran at the industry-standard 24 frames per second, while others used 48. The faster rate kept fast-moving objects clearly visible. The schedule even bent around Sigourney Weaver, who needed time to film a cameo for the series eight finale of the television show Doc Martin.

  On the 14th of November 2017, the crew filmed the first underwater motion capture scenes, featuring six of the seven main child actors. Nobody used scuba sets, because air bubbles could interfere with the motion capture sensors. Infrared light, the usual tool for motion capture, is absorbed by water and never registered by the sensors. The team switched to ultraviolet light instead. They built two separate systems, one underwater and one above, and the two had to work in sync.

  Weta Digital announced on the 31st of July 2017 that it had started work on the sequels. Because underwater motion capture had never been accomplished before, the team spent a year and a half developing a new system. Weta's visual effects producer, David Conley, called Avatar 2 the biggest visual effects project the company had ever undertaken, at nearly 3.3 billion thread hours. To handle the enormous volume of data, Weta used the cloud storage services of Amazon Web Services. Industrial Light & Magic helped with visual effects work as well.

  The underwater fight between Jake and Quaritch was the riskiest scene to capture. The actors had to perform choking motions, which can cause drowning, so a safety team oversaw Worthington and Lang throughout. By the 8th of June 2018, Cameron said that 130 days of motion capture had been shot. On the 14th of November 2018, he announced that motion capture with the principal cast was complete. Live-action filming in New Zealand was still to come.

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• 6. Pandemic Production

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  In February 2019, producer Jon Landau said live-action filming for Avatar 2 and 3 would begin in New Zealand that spring. On the 17th of March 2020, he announced that filming was postponed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual production carried on in Manhattan Beach, and visual effects work continued at Weta Digital in Wellington. In early May, the New Zealand government endorsed health and safety protocols for the production, allowing filming to resume in the country.

  On the 1st of June, Cameron, Landau and at least 55 crew members flew back to New Zealand. Before they could start, each had to complete a two-week, government-supervised isolation period at a hotel in Wellington. Avatar 2 and 3 became the first major Hollywood films to resume production after the pandemic stoppage. Filming restarted on the 16th of June.

  The production hired 46 New Zealand cast members, including Cliff Curtis and Duane Evans Jr. It also employed 114 local stunt performers, 36 apprentices and interns, and almost 800 extras. In September, Cameron stated that live-action filming in New Zealand was complete. All filming for Avatar 2 was finished, he said, while 95% of Avatar 3 had been shot. Filming for Avatar 2 had lasted more than three years.

  In July 2022, the New Zealand Film Commission disclosed that the sequels had received over NZ$140 million in public funding through the country's Screen Production Grant. Brooke van Velden, deputy leader of the ACT party, criticized the subsidy program for allegedly taking public funding from other areas. Stuart Nash, the Economic Development and Regional Development Minister, replied that subsidies for major Hollywood productions brought much-needed overseas investment and jobs. That argument arrived only months before the film reached audiences.

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• 7. Music and Marketing

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  In the editing room, Cameron removed about ten minutes of what he called "gunplay action" from the film. He cited mass shootings, including the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, as his reason for reducing gun violence on screen.

  James Horner, who composed the score for the first Avatar, had been excited to return for the sequels. He died in an airplane crash in June 2015. Simon Franglen, who had worked with Cameron and Horner as a producer and arranger on Titanic and Avatar, was confirmed for the sequels in 2021. The film used Horner's Avatar score alongside original themes by Franglen. The soundtrack album arrived on the 16th of December 2022 from Hollywood Records, and an expanded edition with ten more tracks followed four days later.

  Two original songs joined the score. In November 2022, it was reported that Franglen and Zoe Saldaña would perform a song titled "Song Chord". The next month, the Canadian singer the Weeknd was announced as contributing "Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)", produced by Franglen and the Swedish group Swedish House Mafia.

  Disney's promotion began at the 2022 CinemaCon, where the title was announced and the first teaser trailer was released. In its first 24 hours online, the trailer drew 148.6 million views, including 23 million from China. Eight minutes of the film screened in 3D at the D23 Expo on the 10th of September 2022. A second excerpt played during the credits of the Avatar re-release on the 23rd of September. The full trailer premiered on Good Morning America on the 2nd of November, and eighteen minutes of footage played at the CCXP convention on the 2nd of December.

  Tie-ins spread widely. Lego released four new Avatar sets, and Kellogg's distributed an estimated 53 million Avatar-themed packages. Lightstorm Entertainment, Cameron's production company, and Mercedes-Benz revealed the Vision AVTR concept car at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2020. In China, Razer launched an Avatar computer mouse, and NYX Professional Makeup promoted a line of products inspired by the film. Disney also launched an environmental campaign called "Keep Our Oceans Amazing" to support the Nature Conservancy's work protecting marine habitats. Two books, an art book and a visual dictionary by Joshua Izzo, arrived alongside the film.

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• 8. Release and Reception

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  The world premiere took place on the 6th of December 2022 at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London. Some countries saw the film on the 14th of December, and 20th Century Studios released it in the United States on the 16th. Unlike the first Avatar, this sequel came from Disney, which had acquired the entertainment properties of 21st Century Fox in 2019. It opened on over 12,000 screens in the United States and Canada and 40,000 internationally. Distributors created 1,065 individual Digital Cinema Packages, covering formats, 51 subtitled languages and 28 dubbed variations.

  The United States and Canada opening weekend reached $134.1 million, nearly double the original's $77 million. That figure still fell below the projections of Boxoffice Pro. Worldwide, the opening weekend brought in $441.7 million. The film reached $1 billion in 14 days and crossed $2 billion on the 22nd of January, in 40 days. Its worldwide total stands at $2.334 billion, making it the highest-grossing film of 2022 and the third-highest of all time. It held the top spot for its first seven weekends, more consecutive weekends than any film since the original Avatar. In China it earned $245 million, against $202 million for the first film. Deadline Hollywood calculated a net profit of $531.7 million.

  Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A", and 91% of those surveyed by PostTrak gave it a positive score. Critics split along a clear line. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times described the visuals as "some of the most dazzling, vibrant, and gorgeous images ever seen on screen". Owen Gleiberman of Variety called it a "dizzyingly spectacular sequel" but found the story simplistic and the characters shallow. Others objected to the length. Robbie Collin of The Telegraph wrote that the film had "no plot, no stakes and atrocious dialogue". Drew Hayden Taylor of the Toronto Star noted that some indigenous peoples in Canada received the film poorly.

  At the 95th Academy Awards, the film won Best Visual Effects and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Sound and Best Production Design. It won both of its Annie Award nominations. The National Board of Review and the American Film Institute each named it one of the ten best films of 2022. RogerEbert.com critic Brian Tallerico heard echoes of The Terminator, Titanic and The Abyss, and saw environmentalism and settler colonialism among its themes.

  In November 2017, Cameron had warned that Avatar 4 and 5 depended on the box office results of the earlier sequels. After the film's success, he said in January 2023: "it looks like I can't wiggle out of this and I'm gonna have to do these other sequels." Avatar: Fire and Ash arrived in 2025. His own forecast for the work ahead was blunt: "I know what I'm going to be doing the next six or seven years."

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