Even before it had an official title, Avatar: The Way of Water has spent so many years as a promise-pushing abstraction, that the idea of its very existence has comfortably settled silently onto the entertainment industry’s peripheral landscape. It’s the kind of thing that tends to happen when you break just about every box office record, as director James Cameron’s original 3D-imbued sci-fi epic did in 2009, and then take thirteen years to capitalize on unprecedented success with a sequel. Well, Cameron’s sequel—and the three set to arrive after it—is no longer an abstraction, thanks to an awe-inspiring teaser trailer.
Check out the Avatar: The Way of Water teaser trailer just below.
While short on plot details, the visuals manage to do most of the talking in the Avatar sequel teaser, taking would-be moviegoers on a fantastically surreal adventure spanning slightly over 90 seconds. Indeed, while the original film’s $237 million budget provided the best imagery that 2009 technology could provide, Cameron has certainly used the franchise’s baker’s dozen years hiatus to showcase stupendous advances in technology, along with the economic benefits of buying in bulk since he’s been making his four sequels successively, purportedly for a collective budget of about $1 billion. While that may sound absurd, keep in mind that Amazon allegedly dropped just as much in total for its upcoming The Lord of the Rings TV series.
Seeing we are well past the decade mark since 2009’s Avatar, in which theatrical moviegoers first witnessed—in three eye-popping, trend-setting, bug-swatting dimensions—planet Pandora’s cerulean indigenous humanoids, the Na’vi, successfully expelling militants of Earth’s technologically superior colonizers, the Resources Development Administration (RDA), the upcoming long-belated sequel roughly matches our own passage of time in its setting. Thus, the mind-moving metamorphosis of formerly quadriplegic human Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) into an immense, ambulatory Na’vi Avatar body has yielded a marriage to Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and walking/talking Na’vi children. Additionally, amongst the trailer’s collage of familiar stratospheric Pandora landscapes, it is implied that forces not yet explained are looking to disrupt the Na’vi’s new harmonious existence and apparent technological prowess.
However, outside of the Avatar sequel’s array of awe, there wasn’t too much substance provided in the initial teaser. Based on what we’re seeing, audiences are not being told who or what is the threat this time around, and, specifically, why this latest tale of travails will see the Sully family immersed in an eponymous underwater adventure. Yet, one could argue that such things are not yet necessary with the franchise being in a unique situation, in which it must first revive the nostalgic memories of moviegoers who were initially awed by the first film over a dozen years ago. After all, even the film’s studio, 20th Century Fox, has since been absorbed by Disney, rendering the sequels tangential products of the Mouse House. Moreover, while the first film’s December 2009 release was the catalyst for an eventual $2.8 billion worldwide box office rampage, the entertainment industry has evolved dramatically, and the expectation that most of that audience will use their inflation-diminished disposable income with the same zeal could become a costly exercise in complacency. Yet, if there’s one thing naysayers have learned over the years, it’s to doubt the cagey creative powers of James Cameron with extreme caution.
Besides returning co-stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana, the Avatar sequel cast will also consist of touted supporting players Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, Edie Falco, CCH Pounder and Jemaine Clement. Since some of those actors memorably played characters in the first film who (spoiler alert) clearly died, it will be interesting to see what twists await, likely to be revealed over the course of the seven months remaining in its promotional buildup.
Avatar: The Way of Water has just commenced a slow-burn promotional campaign to ensure that it will serve as your Christmas season movie destination, teasing technology that abandons the goofy 3D glasses of yesteryear, with a release date currently set for Friday, December 16.
