Thirteen years after the premiere of James Cameron’s Avatar, the blockbuster director is back for the world premiere of Avatar: The Way of Water in London’s Leicester Square today, where he appeared with stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Salndaña, Sigourney Weaver, and Kate Winslet to share a message of hope for the film and the Avatar franchise that’s still yet to come.
Taking place ten years after the events of Avatar (2009), Avatar: The Way of Water sees Sam Worthington return as former Marine Jake Sully, who’s embraced life as a Na’vi and started a life and a family on Pandora with Neytiri (Saldaña) and their children Kiri (Weaver), Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo’ak (Brian Dalton), and Tuktirey (Triniti Jo-Li Bliss). According to the film’s official synopsis, Avatar: The Way of Water follows Jake and his family through “the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure.” Details about the film’s plot are being kept under lock and key for now but will likely become available after Disney starts premiering the film globally on December 14th and then domestically on the 16th.
James Cameron at the ‘Avatar 2’ London Premiere: ‘We Need This’
Amidst a busy weekend of making celebrity appearances with the cast and promoting the new film, Avatar: The Way of Water, director/producer/writer James Cameron took to the stage at the Odeon West End in London to say a few words about the film and thank audiences for coming.
“I don’t know about you, this is a pretty surreal moment for me that we are done with the film,” he said, according to Deadline. “Five years of production and five years spanning a really dark period. The pandemic hit, we were shut down completely. I was despairing this art form I love that I dedicated four decades to was over. We finally got back to work but we didn’t know if there would be movie theaters. Was it over? But here we are.”
“Theaters are full again and moviegoers of the world have declared resoundingly that we need this. We need this ability to gather together to sit in these great dark spaces and to dream together with our eyes wide open in a cinema. To me tonight is not about a new Avatar film. It’s about cinema, and here you are in your black-tie finery. It’s a celebration of this art form that we love so much. It’s back it’s alive and it’s as great as it’s ever been.”
According to BBC, the sequel to Avatar was first announced in 2010, and it and an Avatar threequel were initially meant to be released way back in 2014, but multiple versions of the film had to be written before Cameron was happy with his work – a process that took longer than expected, and now here we are.
Hopes for Avatar: The Way of Water are high, especially after the original film was re-released back in September, but audiences will have to wait just a little longer to return to the world of Pandora. Red-carpet photos from the London premiere are available online.