Avatar: The Way Of The Water

When is the Avatar 2 release date? And, now we’re asking, when are the other three coming out? The original saw us travel to exotic climes – quite the blessing at the moment, come to think of it – with its amazing performance capture, CG backgrounds, and 3D photography. The 2009 blockbuster became the highest grossing film of all time, until Avengers: Endgame spoiled the Na’vi party.

Even though it’s been over a decade since now, this success naturally breeds sequels, and we’re getting quite a few of them. Originally intended for 2014, the still-untitled Avatar 2 is the first of four follow-ups on the way. We haven’t heard much of late, but not long ago Cameron revealed this first sequel is 100% done, with the third very far along, too – we even recently got a new set photo featuring a huge boat called The Matador, more on that below.

While we do know we’re headed back to Pandora, we also know we’ll be travelling underwater thanks to cutting-edge motion capture tech. But there’s plenty more we know, and still have to find out: here’s everything we know so far about the Avatar 2 release date, title, plot, cast and more.

Avatar 2 release date (and Avatar 3, 4 and 5’s release dates)

Avatar 2 is now 100% finished, and Avatar 3 is “sort of” 95% done, (via Deadline). In a video chat from New Zealand in September 2020, Cameron said “We’re 100% complete on Avatar 2 and sort of 95% complete on Avatar 3,” with his team currently cracking on with outstanding live-action work.

Cameron also mentioned that “about four and a half months” of production were lost to coronavirus disruption, despite New Zealand’s relatively strong response to the pandemic. After a filming hiatus, production restarted in June 2020, but the break contributed to the following delays:

• Avatar 2: December 17, 2021 to December 16, 2022
• Avatar 3: December 22, 2023 to December 20, 2024
• Avatar 4:December 19, 2025 to December 18, 2026
• Avatar 5: December 27, 2027 to December 22, 2028

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The big-budget return to Pandora, the vibrant world James Cameron created for the original Avatar back in 2009.
• Where can I watch it? This will be an absolutely massive tentpole release, so there shouldn’t be a shortage of multiplexes where you can see it – as long as James Cameron doesn’t set the technical bar so high that average cinemas can’t handle the screening specs, or the pandemic is still raging on. Expect it to arrive on Disney Plus after its theatrical release.
• When can I watch it? December 16, 2022.

Avatar 2’s story: what we know

Plot specifics are currently as elusive as the ‘Unobtainium’ the human invaders were trying to extract from Pandora in the original Avatar. We do know, however, that the story will pick up around a decade after the first film, and that Jake Sully (whose human consciousness was permanently downloaded into his Na’vi body) and Neytiri now have children: Neteyam, Lo’ak, Tuktirey. It’s also been confirmed that much of the movie will take place around Pandora’s oceans, with the newly introduced sea-faring Metkayina clan playing a key role.

“We made the decision for the sequels not to do necessarily what other science fiction movies do, which is if they want water they go to the ocean planet; and if they want snow, they go to the ice planet,” Cameron’s long-term producing partner Jon Landau said in an interview with Slashfilm(opens in new tab). “We looked at all the wonders the Earth shows us, and we realized we could travel our whole lives and not see all the true wonders Earth has. So Jim made the decision to set the sequels all on Pandora. Our stories introduce us to different environments, and also different cultures.”

Of course, there are also going to be run-ins with those annoying, moon-pillaging humans of the Resources Development Association (RDA). “The storyline in the sequels really follows Jake and Neytiri, and their children,” Cameron told Variety(opens in new tab). “It’s more of a family saga about the struggle with the humans.”

While Avatar 2 will be the second act of a five-movie saga, the plan is for it to function as a film in its own right, while still being part of a wider arc. Indeed, Cameron’s desire to craft a story that was truly worth telling is one of the main reasons Avatar 2 has taken so long to materialize.

“We’re making standalone movies that will stand alone,” Landau told Slashfilm. “Rather than rushing into doing the sequels, because Jim doesn’t rush it, we have to build our foundation, and that’s the scripts. Knowing that we wanted to tell multiple stories, we didn’t just want to solve one script. We wanted to solve the scripts for all of the movies we wanted to make before we ventured out into making them. That’s what took us the time.”