NEW YORK (AP) — Thirteen years after James Cameron plunged moviegoers into the cosmic world of “Avatar,” the lush, distant moon of Pandora is finally orbiting back into view.
Cameron’s “Avatar” industrial complex has been whirling in high gear for some time; production on the upcoming sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” began back in 2017. But after shuffling through half a decade’s worth of release dates, Cameron’s science-fiction epic is poised to again blanket movie screens and transport willing travelers back, in 3-D, to the land of the Na’vi.
For even the visionary filmmaker of “Titanic” and “The Terminator,” the relaunch of “Avatar” is, as Cameron said in a recent interview from Wellington, New Zealand, “a big bet.” A third “Avatar” is already in post-production, and production has begun on a fourth. The record-breaking $2.8 billion in box office that “Avatar” grossed made the coming “Avatar” armada a far-from-risky wager. But a lot has changed since the original’s release, when Netflix was still renting DVDs by mail and Cameron was working for 20th Century Fox.
To whet moviegoers’ appetites ahead of the Dec. 16 debut of the three-hour “Avatar: The Way of Water” — and remind them of a movie world they may have lost touch with — the Walt Disney Co. on Friday will rerelease “Avatar” in a remastered, 4K, HDR version that he says is “better than it’s ever looked.”
It’s an opening salvo in Cameron’s ambitious plan to sketch a yet-grander sci-fi saga, and to again conjure a cinematic experience, as he says, “that you simply cannot have in the home.” Taking a break from all the “Avatar” juggling, Cameron talked re-watching the original, his expectation for “The Way of Water” and why he nearly quit the “Avatar” business.