Return to Pandora with the first teaser for Avatar: The Way of Water

If you went into the theater to watch Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness this weekend you probably got to see the first teaser for Avatar: The way of the waterthe highly anticipated sequel to the 2009 sci-fi blockbuster Avatar† Director James Cameron spent more than a decade creating the first of four planned sequels, much of which is set in underwater environments.

(Spoilers for the 2009 film below.)

Cameron prescribed a treatment Avatar way back in 1994, and it was supposed to be the director’s next big project after wrapping up his blockbuster Titanic† But Cameron realized that the technology did not yet exist to make the film he envisioned. He spent several years developing what he needed, including an advanced virtual camera system to direct the motion capture scenes. (He compared it to “a big, powerful game engine.”)

The visionary gamble has paid off. The finished film set new box office records upon release; it was the highest-grossing film to Avengers: Endgame briefly took first place in 2019. (A March 2021 Chinese reissue) Avatar back to top.) Critics were mostly positive, praising the technological achievements, although some noted that the storytelling suffered a bit. Cameron also consulted with multiple scientists while designing the world of Pandora (a moon orbiting a gas giant exoplanet called Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri A system). Avatar was nominated for nine Oscars, eventually winning for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects.

Even before Avatar‘s release, Cameron expressed hopes of making two sequels, expanding the story to include other moons of Polyphemus. The first would contain Pandora’s ocean and record at the bottom of the Mariana Trench with a deep-water submarine. (Cameron made the first solo descent into the trench in 2012 thanks to such a submarine.) But again, he needed technology that didn’t exist before, namely for filming underwater motion capture scenes. As Cameron explained to Collider in 2017:

It’s never been done before and it’s very tricky because our motion capture system, like most motion capture systems, is the optical foundation, meaning it uses markers shot with hundreds of cameras. The problem with water is not the underwater part, but the interface between the sky and the water, which forms a moving mirror. That moving mirror bounces off all the dots and marks, and it creates a lot of false marks. It’s kind of like a fighter jet dumping a bunch of chaff to confuse a missile’s radar system. It creates thousands of false targets, so we had to figure out how to get around that problem, which we did. Basically, when you add water to a problem, it just gets 10 times harder. So we’ve thrown a lot of horsepower, innovation, imagination and new technology at the problem, and it’s taken us about a year and a half now to figure out how we’re going to do it.

I expect we’ll hear more about the various technological advances that have been made to make this film as studio marketing gets underway.

Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana reprise their roles as Jake Sully and Neytiri, respectively. Jake decided to merge with his avatar permanently at the end of the first movie so that he could be with Neytiri and start a family on Pandora. According to the official synopsis: “More than a decade after the events of the first film, Avatar: The way of the water begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their children), the troubles that haunt them, the struggles they go through to protect each other, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure .”

That’s pretty vague, but in line with what we’ve heard over the years. Jamie Flatters, Great Britain Dalton and Trinity Bliss play the couple’s three children (Neteyam, Lo-ak and Tuk), while Jack Champion plays a teenager named Spider, born on the human basis, who is rescued and adopted by the couple . Sigourney Weaver (Dr. Grace Augustine), Stephen Lang (Colonel Miles Quaritch), and Matt Gerald (Corporal Lyle Wainfleet) also return, despite all three dying in the original. And CCH Pounder returns as Mo’at, Neytiri’s mother and the spiritual leader of the Omaticaya clan. Cameron has said that Quaritch will once again be the main opponent. The return of that old threat forces Jake and his family to leave their home and explore other parts of Pandora – hence “the way of the water.”