James Cameron’s third Avatar movie will be even longer than the second. The 70-year-old filmmaker admitted he had too many “great ideas” packed into 2022’s Avatar: The Way Of Water – which clocked in at three hours and 12 minutes – but he’s gone even bigger with the upcoming Avatar: Fire And Ash.
He told Empire magazine: “In a nutshell, we had too many great ideas packed into act one of movie two. 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.’
“Movie three will actually be a little bit longer than movie two.”
His co-writer Amanda Silver, who wrote the script with Cameron and Rick Jaffa, stressed the second and third movies are separate films because “the characters needed to breathe”.
She said: “These movies are a lot more than just propulsive plot and gorgeous spectacle. I mean, these are real characters.”
Cameron recently declared he feels “pretty good” about the third movie after giving “selected people” an advance screening.
He told Stuff: “I’ve shown it to a few selected people and the feedback has been … it’s definitely the most emotional and maybe the best of the three so far. We’ll find out, you know, but I feel pretty good about it.”
The upcoming movie features the likes of Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, and Kate Winslet, and the Titanic filmmaker admitted to being wowed by their efforts.
He said: “The work is exceptional from the actors. It’s pretty heart-wrenching in a good way.”
