“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.