Better begin preparing your bladder friends because Avatar 2, Avatar: The Way of Water, is going to be a long movie – breaking past the two-hour mark. While no official comment has been made regarding the film’s runtime, sources tell Deadline that the upcoming science fiction movie will “clock in at more than three hours.”
Directed by James Cameron, Avatar 2 is the long-awaited follow-up to the hit film Avatar, which released in 2009. One of the highest-grossing movies of all time, it followed the story of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic Marine who infiltrates the Na’vi tribe as a spy before he falls in love with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), the daughter of the Na’vi’s leader.
In the sequel, we follow Jake and Neytiri 15 years in the future, where they must protect their family and planet once again. The original Avatar was also a sizable film with a runtime of two hours and 42 minutes, so it isn’t surprising that its follow-up would be long too.
However, saying that, three-hour movies are a marathon for cinema-goers, and are often reserved for epic dramas such as Gone With The Wind or franchise conclusions such as the Marvel movie Avengers: Endgame and the Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King.
The fact that The Way of Water is a sequel with more films in the franchise planned after its release suggests that Avatar fans are in for more long runtimes in the coming years. Three more Avatar sequels have already been confirmed to be in the works.
Currently, IMDb states that the action movie is three hours and ten minutes long. However, this may be subject to change as the final cut of Avatar: The Way of Water hasn’t been finished yet.
Avatar 2 hits theatres on December 16, 2022. For more out-of-this-world fun, here is our list of the best alien movies of all time.