Five Things You Didn’t Know About Avatar: The Way of Water

In the leadup to the release of Avatar: The Way of Water on December 16, here’s five facts you might not know about the upcoming epic underwater cinematic adventure.

It was filmed in New Zealand.

Among other locations such as California, one of the key filming locations for Avatar: The Way of Water was the beautiful Wellington, New Zealand - a fact many Kiwis are proud to announce!

It has an incredibly long run time of over 3 hours.

Audiences will be transported to the world of Pandora for 3 full hours and 10 minutes! For almost an extra half an hour longer than the original Avatar, viewers will get to hop onboard a truly epic escapist cinematic journey.

Director, James Cameron, has revealed that the purpose of this is to tell an incredibly compelling story in a highly emotive way. He has made it clear that it is important in order to achieve the level of character development and storytelling desired.

A new tribe and a new setting will be introduced.

Incredible new imagery has been released showcasing glimpses of some of the spectacular scenes we will see in the film on the big screen this December. The images, along with scenes from the trailer, show that not only are we going to be taken from Pandora’s rainforests to their divine and pristine oceans, but we will also meet a brand-new ocean tribe. The tribe are different in appearance to the Na’vis we are familiar with from the first film.

James Cameron Took Underwater Filming To The Next Level.

James Cameron hired the world’s best breath-hold specialists, with which the cast underwent incredible training to make the spectacular extended-take scenes possible. Kate Winslet blew the cast and crew away when she held her breath for a mind-blowing seven minutes, Sigourney Weaver got to six and a half minutes, and Zoe Saldaña clocked in at five minutes - simply unbelievable.

The teaser trailer garnered nearly 150 million views in its first 24 hours.

Audiences couldn’t be more excited to enter the gorgeous underwater world of Avatar: The Way of Water, and the numbers show it. Clearly the time has only further fuelled the public’s anticipation, with people flooding into cinemas to watch the re-screening of the original over recent months.

It has been a long wait since the first epic science fiction blockbuster, Avatar broke the box office and won the title of the highest grossing film of all time in 2009, but with technology only having advanced over the last 13 years, and all the incredible work that has gone into the creation of the sequel, audiences know they can expect to be absolutely blown out of the water.

Avatar: The Way of Water releases in cinemas on December 16.