Back in 2010, you’d have been laughed out of Hollywood for doubting a sequel to Avatar. James Cameron’s fantasy epic had taken the world by storm; to this day, it remains the highest-grossing movie of all time. When Avatar 2 was then announced, touted for 2014, it seemed like a nailed-on winner. But 12 years and countless delays later, no one is quite so sure. There have been countless takes about Avatar’s faded relevance: that it has no cultural shelf life; that the public has lost interest. The 3D cinema experience that Avatar made so uniquely appealing has pretty much died out entirely. The forthcoming sequel has become a punchline. But that won’t stop Cameron laughing all the way to the bank.
You see, rumours of Avatar’s cultural obsolescence are overstated. It pretty axiomatically lacks the resonance of a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, yes, but we’re still talking about a sequel to a film that nearly everyone has seen. The years of delays may have killed the franchise’s momentum, but it’s varnished the sequel with a level of complete intrigue. Intensifying this is the fact that, until now, no one has been allowed to see a frame of what is now officially called Avatar: The Way of Water. Beginning last week, the very first trailer for Way of Water was available to catch in cinemas before screenings of Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, ahead of its more conventional online debut today (9 May).
