James Cameron Slams Avatar Haters And Defends ‘Avatar 2’ Runtime

The duration of the original Avatar was two hours and forty minutes, or almost three hours. James Cameron defends Avatar 2's lengthier running time by noting that the sequel will be close to three hours long. In an interview with Empire magazine, he shared his message for the movie's critics.

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“I don’t want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [television] for eight hours,” he told the magazine about the Avatar 2 runtime. “I can almost write this part of the review. ‘The agonizingly long three-hour movie…’ It’s like, give me a f—ing break. I’ve watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row. Here’s the big social paradigm shift that has to happen: it’s okay to get up and go pee.”

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The first was a huge success and continues to be. Asset prices box office earnings of $2.8 billion beat out Avengers: Endgame's $2.7 billion to make it the highest-grossing film of all time. For a little period, the Marvel movie did prevail, but Avatar ultimately triumphed. When the movie first came out, it was nominated for nine Oscars and won three of them.

As the director plans to release Avatar 2 with a duration that is longer than the 2009 original, it opens the door for more sequels, even if it has been more than ten years. However, some people in the film industry ridicule that achievement.

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“The trolls will have it that nobody gives a s— and they can’t remember the characters’ names or one damn thing that happened in the movie,” he said. “Then they see the movie again and go, ‘Oh, okay, excuse me, let me just shut the f— up right now.’ So I’m not worried about that.”

Given the size of the world the filmmaker created and the length of the story that will be recounted throughout three additional films, Avatar 2 will need a lengthy runtime. Ten years after the events of the previous movie, Sam Worthington's Jake Sully and Zoe Saldana's Neytiri are once again introduced to viewers in The Way of Water.

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One of their children will be an adopted teenager played by Sigourney Weaver, and they will need to defend their family from a new danger. Stephen Lang will likewise be back. Edie Falco (The Sopranos), Jemaine Clement (What We Do in the Shadows), and Kate Winslet will all be appearing in the sci-fi movie.

The movie debuts on December 16 in theaters. December 2024 is the planned release date for the third part. Four and five are planned but have not yet been confirmed.