Disney is hoping that James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water will reinvigorate audiences' excitement for the 3D format, as well as movie-going in general.
“At a time when people are used to being at home watching content, anything that encourages them to go to theaters has to be a positive for us and the industry in general,” said Disney’s chief of global film distribution Tony Chambers during an interview with THR. “It’s all about the experience. If done right, people will come out again and again. The messaging won’t be to see Avatar 2 in 3D but to see it for the experience.”
“We believe 3D creates a more immersive experience in our narrative storytelling. We don’t play 3D as a world coming out of a window. We play it as a window into the world,” said The Way of Water producer Jon Landau. The producer elaborates that the 3D experience achieved with the second Avatar movie will hopefully be enough to push audiences back into theaters. "We need the exhibition community to be supportive of that and to understand that we are competing with different technologies than are in people’s homes," said Landau.
“I think what happened is some people got lost, and there’s a period of time where people felt that converting something to 3D made it a better movie; 3D does not change the movie, 3D exacerbates whatever the movie is,” Landau continued. The producer goes on to explain that he thinks studios began to implement 3D tech as "an afterthought" which didn't necessarily add to the final quality of a film.
No film exemplified the promise of 3D more than 2009’s Avatar, which, with $8.45 billion in global ticket sales, remains the top-grossing film of all time. Cameron's original foray to the alien world of Pandora may have come out almost 15 years ago, but anticipation is building for the long-awaited Avatar sequel. 20th Century Studios has stated that it has no concerns about how audiences will react to the expansive gap between the original movie and The Way of Water.
What has been revealed about the plot is sparse, but Disney has confirmed that the Avatar sequel is set several years after the first movie, and will focus on Jake Sully, his mate Neytiri and their family. When a returning threat once again threatens their way of life, the Omaticaya clan is forced to flee their land, embarking on an adventure to find a new, suitable home.
Avatar: The Way of Water arrives in theaters Dec. 16, 2022.
Source: THR