Thirteen years after Avatar hit theaters and became the highest-grossing film of all time, James Cameron is back for more.
The director unveiled new footage Saturday from his sequel, Avatar: The Last Airbender, at Disney’s D23 Expo, according to the AV Club. With three additional entries in the franchise in the works, Cameron was especially happy to finally show new scenes from the upcoming film.
“I’m very excited to finally finish the second movie,” Cameron told the audience. “I know everyone has been waiting a long time. Hopefully we’ll show something today and you can decide if it was worth it.”
The presentation showed five or six scenes from the film, which viewers experienced with 3D glasses. The underwater scenes reportedly dazzled the crowd as viewers were transported back to the fictional world of Pandora.
The original film, which saw US Marines take on an alien species called the Na’vi, broke box office records and has since grossed nearly $3 billion. Film critics such as Philip French of The Observer called the 2009 film “overlong, dramatically two-dimensional, complacent and simplistic”.
As for the length of the sequel, Cameron recently said that he didn’t want anyone to criticize its three-hour running time.
“I don’t want anyone whining about the length when they’re sitting and watching binge [television] in eight hours,” he told Empire in July. “I can almost write this part of the review. “The excruciatingly long three-hour movie…” It’s like, give me a fucking break. I watched my kids sit down and do five one-hour episodes in a row.”
Director Liam O’Donnell, who wrote the sci-fi alien invasion film Skyline, took to Twitter after watching Cameron perform footage from Waterway in August. It “looks like the most insanely complicated movie ever made” and “wracked the brain”, he said
“Just the amount of data they captured,” O’Donnell tweeted. “Capturing underwater performance with 15 cameras. Two cameras on each actor’s face capture. Underwater reference shooting for fully CG creatures. Oh yeah, and infrared depth capture for placing CG characters in live footage.”
Over the years, Avatar has become a cultural phenomenon, spurring the annual Halloween costumes of the blue-skinned protagonists and Ben Stiller’s humorous performance at the 2010 Academy Awards.
“Water Road” is set to hit theaters on December 16.
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