Not everybody is profoundly in love with Pandora, the lush and verdant forest moon that James Cameron brought back to multiplexes with the long-delayed Avatar: The Way of Water. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it “a soggy, twee, trillion-dollar screensaver”. And if you scan through the comment sections of most pieces about the film it is clear that many were hoping to see it die a death at the box office, with Cameron’s plans for another five movies going with it. After all, it has been reported that The Way of Water needs to make $2bn just to cover its costs and the Canadian director himself recently told Vanity Fair: “Let’s face it, if Avatar 2 and 3 don’t make enough money, there’s not going to be a 4 and 5.”
Unfortunately for those naysayers, the BBC reported this week that The Way of Water has passed $1bn at the global box office in only 14 days, the fastest movie of 2022 to pass the landmark. You don’t get these kind of figures without the sort of word-of-mouth that is likely to see The Way of Water become one of the highest-grossing films of the post-pandemic era.
The reality is that unless the film’s box office receipts fall off a cliff in the new year, we probably all need to accept at that we’re in for the long haul. So what will Avatar 3 look like when it turns up in cinemas in December 2024?
The Way of Water climaxed with the death of Jake and Neytiri’s first-born son, Neteyam, after a skirmish with the resurrected Colonel Miles Quaritch and his human allies. Quaritch made it out alive after being rescued by his (sort-of) son Spider while the Sullys remain with the ocean-dwelling Metkayina clan on Pandora’s eastern seaboard. We can only assume that when RDA head honcho General Frances Ardmore is properly debriefed, Quaritch will be given far greater resources to seek out and destroy the Sully menace once and for all. So how do the Na’vi fight back in part three?
The Way of Water dropped several clues here. We know that Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) has just begun to use her Eywa-derived superpowers to control the flora and fauna of Pandora. And we know there are sentient creatures on the forest moon other than the Na’vi, who are just beginning to realise their own role in defending the planet.
Could there be more clues in the next film’s title? Cameron confirmed in 2019 that it was (at that stage) called Avatar: The Seed Bearer. We know from producer Jon Landau that future episodes are likely to introduce new Na’vi clans, though the reference to seeds might not necessarily reference a new tribe – it could just as easily hint at a pregnancy.
There have been hints from Landau that the landscapes of Pandora will feature in future episodes. “We’re gonna go out and see different biomes, and that’s gonna present its own technological challenges,” he told Collider. “How do we present those? Just like water presented challenges in this one.”
We already know there are areas of Pandora where gravity is radically reduced, so maybe the Na’vi could live in the skies. Perhaps they live beneath the ground too, though it’s hard to imagine the adventures of tunnelling tribes would make for such spectacular 3D.
New characters set to join include a Na’vi known as Peylak, who will be played by David Thewlis, as well as scientist Dr Karina Mogue, played by Michelle Yeoh. Oona Chaplin will play a character named Varang, who also sounds like she’s a native of Pandora. You might imagine that at least one of them might be set up as the saga’s new big bad, although Cameron has confirmed that Quaritch, presumably in his blue Recombinant form, will be the series’ main villain for the foreseeable future.
How much time will have elapsed between parts two and three? Not very much at all is likely to be the answer if we consider that the films were shot back to back (film three is already in the can). That means it might be a while before we start to see the arrival of colonists from Earth, despite having learned during The Way of Water that they are on their way.
Then again, the arrival of civilian humans on Pandora seems to offer part three its best potential for fresh narrative shifts and moral intrigue. Is it the 22nd-century Earthlings’ fault their planet is dying and they need a new home, given most of the environmental destruction was probably carried out by their predecessors? And might some of these new arrivals choose to side with the Na’vi against the RDA?
How much will part three move the story forward after the relatively dialled-down events of The Way of Water? Landau has spoken about a desire to make sure that each film works as a standalone entry but as followers of the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe have learned, there comes a certain point in these macro-sagas when you need to be up to speed in order to avoid spending most of the movie completely baffled.
Anyone who didn’t see Avatar before catching The Way of Water must have wondered what was going on when Quaritch realised he had been resurrected as a giant blue space elf. And given part four is rumoured to be titled The Tulkun Rider, there might be a few of us scratching our heads if we didn’t catch the episode in which the sentient whale-like creatures were introduced.
The more these movies keep coming, the more those who enjoy them are going to need to go all in. Similarly, perhaps it’s better for those who simply don’t warm to Avatar at all to just turn away now, given future episodes are all going to be more than three hours long and the investment involved is likely to be excruciating.
For the rest of us, there’ll be no getting away from Avatar over the next decade or so. The people have spoken, and apparently Dances with Wolves meets Ferngully: the Last Rainforest is just what they were looking for.