The long-awaited Avatar: The Way of the Water hits theaters on December 16th. The first installment of the Avatar franchise was released in 2009 and was a huge hit with huge box office receipts at the time of release. The second part was one of the biggest film productions in history, directed by the revolutionary director James Cameron. From filming the movie to its release, there are many interesting facts that we at Joy-pup want to share with you.
The long-awaited sequel about the blue-skinned inhabitants of Pandora was a resounding success and a box office wave. In just 5 days, it became one of eight films in 2022 to cross the half-billion viewing mark worldwide. A week after its release, Avatar: The Way of the Water has grossed over $600 million worldwide. It is expected that by the beginning of the new year (if not earlier), this mark will reach $1 billion.
The film was shot at 48 frames per minute, which caused problems when shown in a number of Japanese theaters. Even in such a high-tech country, they were not ready for the new technologies and visual effects that disabled the equipment for showing the film. This led to the cancellation of premiere sessions and the return of money to viewers.
The production budget for Avatar 2 is $250 million, as stated in early reports. But director James Cameron does not want to give an exact figure yet, answering only that it is “damn expensive.” The first Avatar movie was made on a $237 million budget and grossed a whopping $2.9 billion at the box office.
The epic film is 192 minutes (3 hours 12 minutes) long, 30 minutes longer than its predecessor. The film was published in more than 160 languages.
Film director James Cameron was so engrossed in the project that he wanted the perfect equipment for his filming. Therefore, James Cameron’s production company Lightstorm Entertainment and SONY have developed a new camera together called SONY Venice. This is SONY’s first full-frame digital cinema camera at the time of its release and was used with 3D stereoscopic setups for maximum versatility.
Avatar: The Way of the Water is being released in China, a country where Hollywood movies are banned. This makes it one of the few Hollywood blockbusters to be allowed to air in China in 2022.
After the first two parts of Avatar, James Cameron plans to release 3 more parts in the coming years. The following installments of Avatar are tentatively titled Avatar: Seed Carrier, Avatar: Tulkun Rider, and Avatar: Seeking Eywa. They are expected to be released by 2024, 2026 and 2028.
One of the most surprising aspects of the film is where it was filmed. Much of Avatar: The Path of Water takes place underwater. James Cameron didn’t think the underwater simulation was good enough – he wanted the real one. The director and his team developed a revolutionary new underwater motion capture technology specifically for this film. It is considered an extremely innovative style of filmmaking.
The team had a 340,000 liter water tank built to be used in all of the sequels, allowing them to create different water conditions for certain scenes. All the main actors of the film had to train extensively in the art of freediving because the use of scuba equipment would interfere with the mo-cap technology. Kate Winslet herself performed all underwater stunts and trained to hold her breath for as long as 7.5 minutes.
The film features an all-star Hollywood cast. Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Yeoh as Dr. Karina Maug, Zoe Saldana as Neytiri, Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Stephen Lang (Colonel Quaritch).
Filming for Avatar: The Way of Water began in August 2017 and wrapped up in 2020. Considering the film is a mixture of live action and motion capture (mo-cap) elements, it’s no wonder it took a while.
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