“Avatar: The Way of Water” was already a hefty 192 minutes, but James Cameron is now telling Empire Magazine to expect a longer runtime for the threequel (‘Fire and Ash’).
“In a nutshell, we had too many great ideas packed into act one of movie 2,” Cameron says. “The [film] was moving like a bullet train, and we weren’t drilling down enough on character. So I said, ‘Guys, we’ve got to split it.’” While ‘The Way Of Water’ was epic in its own right, “movie 3 will actually be a little bit longer than movie 2”, he teases.
The first “Avatar” clocked in at 162 minutes. The sequels have clearly kicked up a notch — both thirty minutes longer. Hopefully, it doesn’t actually feel like 190 minutes. I’m reminded of an old Roger Ebert quote; “No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough”.
“Avatar: The Way of Water,” released in late 2022, cost $400M to produce, and turned out to be the year’s most profitable movie, grossing $2.3 billion worldwide. In addition, it placed James Cameron as the only filmmaker in history to have three movies among the top 20 highest-grossing of all time.
Marvel's "Ghost Rider" just hired one of the best cinematographers working today. Linus Sandgren will serve as DP on Shawn Levy's MCU flick, and, most notably, the project will be shot on film.