Avatar 3: The Movie Is Currently Over 9 Hours Long

James Cameron's "Avatar 2: The Way of Water" is currently playing in cinemas and is working hard to earn back the insanely high production costs and meet the high expectations. With $435 million worldwide, the movie is in third place for the best opening weekend since the pandemic. Both "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" and "Spider-Man: No Way Home" were able to outperform James Cameron's mega-project.

Behind the scenes, there is little time to rest, despite the theatrical release on December 16. After all, there are still three films to go before Cameron's vision is fully brought to the big screen. As producer Jon Landau confirmed, "Avatar 3" is already 95% complete, after the scripts for all five parts have been known internally for some time anyway. Currently, they are busy shooting "Avatar 4", which, like parts 2 and 3, is supposed to introduce both a new culture and new tribes.

The current version of "Avatar 3" is said to be a full nine hours long and is packed with special effects from the first minute to the last. That doesn't mean that the final version will also be nine hours long. However, according to Hollywood insider Jeff Sneider, James Cameron is said to have explicitly demanded that all scenes shot must be in top quality so that he could choose at a high standard. This is quite unusual, since most productions edit based on raw versions of the scenes. Not only is it less expensive, it's also less time-consuming. For the perfectionist Cameron and his life's work "Avatar", however, this is probably out of the question, if one is to believe Sneider's rumors.

The future of the movie series now depends solely on the box office results of "Avatar: The Way of Water" and "Avatar 3". If both movies only perform moderately, a continuation of the cost-intensive franchise is unlikely and Disney would have to put a stop to Cameron's passion project.