Avatar is back after 13 years – but will the sequel live up to the original?
Thirteen years on, James Cameron’s mega-budget Avatar sequel opens in cinemas next week, hoping to illicit that same appetite in cinemagoers for the 3D magic of the first.
While the medium has fallen out of favour, it remains Cameron’s preferred choice of viewing.
But not only will cinemagoers need 3D glasses – coming in at a whopping three hours and 10 minutes, it also requires stamina.
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With production costs totalling around £285m (up there with the most expensive films ever made), to make it worth Disney’s while, the epic has to at least end up making it into the top five highest grossing movies of all time.
To do so, it needs audiences to want to see it more than once, which perhaps isn’t too unreasonable when you factor in that a huge amount of the money generated in both of Cameron’s previous blockbusters – Titanic and the first Avatar – came from cinemagoers paying to see the film’s multiple times.
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The film sees Sam Worthington return to the role of Na’vi leader Jake Sully and is rooted around the family he now has with warrior Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana.
“The movie’s mighty,” Worthington told Sky News.
“It’s a mighty film, and very heart-wrenching.
“We all went through a pandemic together as a whole world, and that’s a connection that we all have to each other… and it’s about us being connected as individuals – I think that’s very important to relate to and really take to heart.”
Thanks to the magic of motion capture, Sigourney Weaver returns, playing Jake Sulley’s adoptive teenage daughter.
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‘I needed to see it twice’
“It’s an experience so immersive and also takes your breath away,” she told Sky News, adding that she will need to see the film once more to get the full experience from it.
The sequel also features Kate Winslet in the cast as the matriarch of an ocean-bound clan.
Sigourney Weaver in Avatar: The Way Of Water. Pic: 20th Century Studios
For the Oscar-winning actress it was a chance to work, once again, with the filmmaker who put her on the Titanic:
“He (Cameron) asked and I said yes. Why on earth would I not?,” she told Sky News.
“Also, my children would never have allowed me to. They were like… just do it.”
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Kate Winslet on accepting Avatar role
Cameron, who overtook his own movie, Titanic, with Avatar as the highest grossing film ever in 2009, has already set the wheels in motion for the next films in the franchise – and spent much of the last decade preparing.
“It was a lot of time spent working on the script for four movies, production design for four movies, a bunch of new technology we needed,” he said.
“And then we started at full tilt five years ago… and then we shot two movies, actually part of the third one.”
Kate Winslet (L) in Avatar. Pic: 20th Century Studios
Cameron also describes his new sci-fi epic as a “love letter to the oceans”.
“A lot of people [in 2009] picked up on the messaging around the rainforest and around the plight of indigenous cultures around the world.
“We have that in spades now because nothing has really got that much better – in the meantime, this one is my love letter to the oceans and a cry for people everywhere to be responsible for guardianship of the oceans.”
Right now the Na’vi’s survival might just depend on what happens off-screen more than on.
Avatar: The Way of Water is in cinemas on 16 December.
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John David Washington says he felt like he had to conceal his desire to act because of the external expectations of him being the child of Denzel and Pauletta Washington.
He tells Sky News it took some time for him to pursue an acting career, choosing football instead to assert his “independence” and create his own “identity” separate from his famous family.
“I’ve been wanting to do this my whole life… but I was hiding it,” he said.
“I had to conceal that passion based on my relationship to the world and more specifically, my folks being in the industry, so I chose ball.
“I loved ball, but I was sort of hiding my love for the arts under a helmet – literally an American football helmet – and so when I wanted to become an actor, when I decided to pursue it, that was a big shock to some people.”
The 40-year-old actor says when he decided to pursue an acting career, he kept the decision quiet.
“Some people didn’t know I was even pursuing it professionally until I got a job,” he said.
John David with fellow actor Danielle Deadwyler. Pic: David Lee/ Netflix
Since switching to acting, John David has starred in a number of notable roles including the protagonist in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, Ron Stallworth in BlacKkKlansman and Joshua in The Creator.
He also led the stage revival of the 2022 Tony-nominated play The Piano Lesson on Broadway alongside Samuel L Jackson.
“He [Jackson] originated the role [I play] in 1987 at Yale with Lloyd Richards and August Wilson,” John David said.
“So it was of great importance for us to learn from both he and Michael Potts about August Wilson. It was a great blessing for me, I think, for all of us to have him present on set.”
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The Piano Lesson is the third August Wilson play to be adapted for the screen by Denzel Washington’s production company Mundy Lane Entertainment.
It is part of a pledge made by the Gladiator II actor to make all 10 of the playwright’s works into films.
The Netflix project is directed by another Washington family member, Malcolm, and stars most of the cast from the Broadway revival.
The Piano Lesson is Malcolm Washington’s directorial debut. Pic: Katia Washington/ Netflix
Set in 1936 Pittsburgh in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the film centres on a family heirloom, a piano, that is etched with the carvings of their family history made by their enslaved ancestor.
Malcolm says he started reading the play for the first time during the pandemic and immediately wanted to be involved in the film adaptation.
“I think with this movie, reclamation of story and identity is so central to the theme and it’s something that’s central to my life where I both acknowledge the fertile ground that I was raised on and who I am today.
“That’s what Wining Boy [played by Michael Potts] really is trying to do, he’s trying to build on that legacy, so that’s a story that really resonated with me.”
The filmmaker added: “I take all the gifts that my ancestors laid in front of me, and I’m trying to build something for the next generation to pass down – all of their gifts, plus mine to the next generation and let them build on it.”
Malcolm has dedicated his directorial debut to his mother, Pauletta Washington. Pic: David Lee/Netflix
Malcolm says his goal was to put family at the forefront of the production. By dedicating his feature debut to “Mama”, he is acknowledging the dedication and sacrifices that mothers make for the growth of their families.
“There’s so much pointing to my mother in particular, who inspired this adaptation so much. I see so much of her life in Berniece’s character [played by Danielle Deadwyler] – and that became a guiding light for me in this adaptation,” he said.
“As we made this thing and started reconnecting with our ancestors, my mum became like a kind of representative of them.
“She’s the matriarch of our family. She tells me about my grandparents and great-grandparents and the line that I come from, and I see them in her.
“And when the movie ends, I want people to kind of have that moment of reflection for their own lives. So in dedicating it to her, I was trying to dedicate it to all mums everywhere.”
The Piano Lesson is now available on Netflix.
Blockbuster Wicked has landed the largest opening weekend of 2024 at Vue International.
The film, starring Oscar-nominated actress Cynthia Erivo and Grammy-winning pop star Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda, surpassed both Gladiator II and Paddington In Peru.
It has also had the largest opening weekend for a stage musical adaptation in the cinema chain’s history.
A boss for Vue International said it had seen a “sea of pink and green” over the weekend.
Ariana Grande (left) as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in the film. Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Released on Friday, Wicked is up 60% on Les Miserables’ opening weekend in 2012 and three times larger than the 2022 film adaptation of Matilda.
Founder and chief executive of Vue International Tim Richards said: “Vue has seen a sea of pink and green over the opening weekend of Wicked, which has shown continued high demand for the big screen experience.
“We saw record-breaking pre-sales for Wicked, followed by a chart-topping opening weekend – the biggest for 2024.”
The film is the first of two parts, with the second expected in November next year.
Wicked and Gladiator II – known together as Glicked – have reportedly failed to beat out Barbenheimer, Barbie and Oppenheimer, in its own opening weekend last summer.
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Glicked brought in £215m in worldwide ticket sales – with Wicked making the majority of that.
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