James Cameron had "too many great ideas" for Avatar: The Way of Water, so the cut content became Avatar 3 which "will actually be a little bit longer" than its 3-hour predecessor

Zoe Saldaña in Avatar.

James Cameron said we were supposed to meet the Ash clan in Avatar: The Way of Water - but the story was saved for Avatar: Fire and Ash.

"In a nutshell, we had too many great ideas packed into act one of movie 2," Cameron told Empire. "The [film] was moving like a bullet train, and we weren’t drilling down enough on character. So I said, "Guys, we’ve got to split it.'"