James Cameron shared on Friday that the upcoming “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” set to release Dec. 19, 2025, will be even longer than its predecessor "The Way Of Water."
James Cameron shared on Friday that the upcoming “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” set to release Dec. 19, 2025, will be even longer than its predecessor "The Way Of Water."
People keep saying this kind of thing, without understanding there are only a couple dozen stories. Literally, every good story is a version of something else. Maybe at best, a mash up of a couple.
I generally believe most movies should be shorter and that there's a lot of room for addition by subtraction. That said, if a movie earns its runtime then I don't think there's an upper limit to how long it can be. Lawrence of Arabia is 3 hours and 45 minutes and it's incredible, I don't think I'd cut anything in it besides the long black intro screen which is a relic of its time. I would say justifying that run time gets exponentially harder past a certain point.
With Way of Water sitting at 3 hours and 12 minutes I do think Avatar 3 needs an intermission if it's going to be longer. Asking people to sit and be fully engaged for 3 and a half hours is a big ask and having a chance to go to the bathroom, get snacks, stretch your legs, etc is needed for something that massive
Part of me wonders what would happen if you released a movie in two parts at the same time.
If it were direct to streaming, that would essentially just be a mini (micro?) series. But in theaters... I'm not sure that sort of thing has been done
According to wiki, 30% of the 4th movie is already filmed, and the rest is going to be filmed after the 3rd is released. And the 5th movie is set for 2031