James Cameron confirms third Avatar movie is even longer

There are many things you could say about James Cameron’s Avatar movies.

They’re technologically pioneering and visually spectacular. They’re full of complex world-building. They’re successful capitalist enterprises with the first two films along grossing more than $US5 billion at the box office, plus all the value created since then with theme parks, video games and merchandise.

What they are not is succinct or well-written. Cameron may spend years and years perfecting the technology for his 3D computer animation but if he spent even a 10th of that attention on the script or the edit, maybe the films wouldn’t feel like such a chore. Or a three-hour long screensaver.

So, it was quite shocking-but-not-surprising to wake up to the news that Cameron has promised the upcoming third instalment due for release in December, Avatar: Fire and Ash, will be even longer than The Way of Water, which was already three hours and 12 minutes long.

By way of comparison, the original 2009 Avatar was two hours and 42 minutes (although it felt so, so much longer), so you can see which way the trend is going. There are supposed to be five Avatar movies in total – at this rate of growth, that final movie could be four hours and 42 minutes, god help us.

Cameron told Empire, Fire and Ash wasn’t on the cards (there were originally meant to be four in total) but came into existence because in the process of writing The Way of Water, he and his co-writers discovered they were trying to cram too much story into it.

“In a nutshell, we had too many great ideas packed into act one of movie two. It 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’,” he said.

That’s news to anyone who’s seen The Way of Water, that there was even one great idea. No, rehashing the beats from the first film, including resurrection its villain, does not constitute a great idea.

Cameron is notorious for not softening his words, and has previously whinged about people complaining about long running times.

In 2022, he said on the Empire podcast, “I don’t want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch (TV) for eight hours.

“I can almost write this part of the review, ‘The agonisingly long three-hour movie’. It’s like, give me a f—king break. I’ve watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row.”

OK, James. Not for nothing, those people binge-watching eight hours of TV at home? They were probably scrolling on their phone anyway.