Fans and the film world had the chance to watch 'Avatar 2' last week in London before its global release, the most eagerly awaited film of the year. The cinemas are hoping to finally forget the pandemic and rake in billions of dollars in revenue.
James Cameron’s 'Avatar: The Way of the Water' arrives in French cinemas on Wednesday 14 December, and two days later in the United States, with a three-pronged goal.
Firstly, it aims to surpass predecessor Avatar 1, the biggest box-office success in the history of the world. A second goal is to disprove the death of cinema in theatres. And, thirdly, it aims to create a saga as mythical as 'Star Wars.'
A sci-fi tale with an ecological tone
Thirteen years after 'Avatar,' which is approaching €3 billion in worldwide receipts, this second film returns to the star Pandora, light years from Earth, for a science fiction fable with an ecological tone. Shot like the first one for 3D, with a mountain of digital images, the film stretches over 03H12.
Contrary to James Cameron’s predictions at the time, 'Avatar' did not make it possible to impose 3D images - which require the wearing of special glasses - on the cinema on a wide scale, but the director is sticking to this technology.
The plot is jealously guarded, but the film is about a new tribe of indigenous aliens living in a marine environment, and features survivors of the first film, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and their five children.
Kate Winslet joins the cast, a quarter of a century after the 'Titanic.'
High expectations for the new film
Like a hundred other people, Dobrinka Perry, “a big fan of the film”, waited in the cold London weather to see the film crew.
Her face made up in the same blue as the characters, she identifies with the two heroes: “I also have five children, I am also a fighter, I fight for my Pandora (…) for (the planet) that we will leave to our children later,” she says.
“We’ve been waiting for a long time” so “expectations are very high,” adds Nelly Szabo, a 23-year-old Londoner, who says she likes “everything” about the film, “the love story, the fight,” the special effects.
“I loved the first one, so I’m glad there’s finally a second one,” enthuses Geraldine Esteve, an illustrator who came from Paris “for the red carpet, for the actors”.
“I really liked the world, the aesthetics,” she recalls. “Seeing it on the big screen was very beautiful, the colours, the lights… .”
The film represents a huge stake for James Cameron, the undisputed king of the global office, who set a string of records with “Titanic” and then the first 'Avatar,” which remains the most profitable film in the world to this day.
Disney has a stake, too
Disney also has a stake in the matter: the images for the third film have already been shot and a new 'Avatar' is planned every two years at least until the fifth, in 2028.
“I’m always worried when a film comes out and this is a particularly difficult time” after the pandemic, admitted the director, interviewed on the red carpet by the BBC. “We have confidence in the film… it’s a good experience, it’s powerful, it’s full of emotion (…) but we’ll see what happens,” he added.
“The film’s release is a big test for the global film industry, everyone is waiting for it,” Eric Marti, managing director of Comscore France, which measures and analyses film audiences, told AFP.
“For two years, it was only for the platforms. For cinemas, this release is 'The Empire Strikes Back,' the reaffirmation of the primacy of cinema” over all other distribution channels, he added.
