James Cameron's Avatar 2 Runtime Defense Completely Misses The Point
James Cameron's defense of the Avatar: The Way of Water runtime misses the point of many criticisms of long runtimes. After a gap of 13 years, James Cameron will return audiences and cast members Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana to Pandora in Christmas 2022. The original Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all time, so there is a considerable weight of expectation on Avatar 2 to perform well at the box office. Adding to this pressure is Cameron's plan for Avatar 2 to be the first of four sequels that will be released over the next six years, risking financial failure if audience interest dwindles.
The interest in these sequels will be dependent on how audiences respond to The Way of Water. The main selling point of Avatar was James Cameron's ground-breaking use of CGI and 3D projection to immerse audiences in an alien world. The sequel is set to take this immersion further, with technological advances in visual effects allowing James Cameron and his team to explore the watery depths of the Na'vi home world. Water is notoriously hard to simulate, and if Cameron has truly accomplished it then it will be a major leap forward for visual storytelling. However, James Cameron has already identified The Way of Water's runtime as a potential stumbling block for critics and audiences, but his pre-emptive defense misses the point of much of these concerns and risks undermining Avatar 2 as a result.
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In an interview with Empire Magazine, James Cameron spoke of the sequel's pressures to perform, and pre-emptively defended Avatar 2's long runtime. «I don't want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [television] for eight hours ...»
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