Avatar The Way of Water London film premiere 2022

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1. When Sigourney Weaver first saw Kiri's initial design, she objected to it because she felt it was "too neat and pretty." She advocated for Kiri to have a messier design and for her to be a more awkward teenager.
2. According to James Cameron, the Avatar sequels were such a massive undertaking that he divided the four scripts between the writing team of Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, and Shane Salerno. Cameron delves further explaining the story process: "I think we met for seven months and we whiteboarded out every scene in every film together, and I didn't assign each writer which film they were going to work on until the last day. I knew if I assigned them their scripts ahead of time, they'd tune out every time we were talking about the other movie."
3. Kate Winslet broke Tom Cruise's underwater filming record from Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) of six minutes with a record of seven minutes and 14 seconds.
4. James Cameron stated that Jake and Neytiri have matured to have less reckless personalities due to being parents, clarifying, "In the first movie, Sam's character leaps off his flying creature and essentially changes the course of history as a result of this crazy, almost suicidal leap of faith. And Zoe's character leaps off a limb and assumes there's going to be some nice big leaves down there that can cushion her fall. But when you're a parent, you don't think that way. So for me, as a parent of five kids, I'm saying, "What happens when those characters mature and realize that they have a responsibility outside their own survival?"
5. According to James Cameron, Kate Winslet performed all of her underwater stunts herself.
6. Weta FX used its own data center to render most scenes of this film. However, processing capacity from Amazon Web Services was also added in the last months. Rendering each frame took 8,000 thread hours which is equivalent to the combined power of 3,000 virtual CPUs in a data center for an hour. At some point, all available capacity of Australian AWS data centers was used to render scenes of this movie.
7. Sigourney Weaver trained in breath-holding to shoot the film's aquatic motion-capture sequences. She also joined her younger co-stars in learning underwater sign language and parkour, for scenes of Na'vi teens running along tree boughs or racing to the tops of floating mountains. "I was determined to be able to do everything they did. I didn't want anyone to say, 'She's kind of an old lady,'" Weaver says. "We all had to be really fit, and parkour is a very good way of getting there." Other cast members participated in knife-fighting and archery lessons, but "Kiri is not a fighter," Weaver adds. "She's a very gentle person. She can be filled with rage, and she's very sensitive to injustice and cruelty, but she doesn't use weapons. She has other powers."
8. In 2013, Cameron, armed with thousands of pages of notes expanding the world of Pandora, decided on the aquatic setting and set a team of writers to pen the sequels. But Jon Landau, who has produced all of Cameron's films since "Titanic," immediately foresaw a problem: The technological processes used to capture actors playing Na'vi on dry sets did not yet exist for capturing them wet. "Right away we started doing R&D," he said, "because no one had ever done performance capture underwater." all of which the cast and stunt teams performed, outfitted with special wet suits and facial capture camera rigs, while free diving in the water.
9. The Maori people, the inspiration source of the Metkayina clan, have traditionally regarded whales as important figures such as being incarnations of Tangaroa (the water god), Taniwha (mystical beings), and as tribal guardians. Additionally, there are a number of whale-related legends, including the famous Whale Rider which is etymologically similar to The Tulkun Rider, the alleged title of Avatar 4.
10. James Cameron seriously considered shooting the entirety of the Avatar sequels in a higher frame rate, stating, "The 3D shows you a window into reality; the higher frame rate takes the glass out of the window". The industry standard is 24fps, and higher frame rates are at least 48fps, 60fps, or 120fps. He later opted out of this route, stating in an interview that as groundbreaking as the format is for cinema, moviegoers have always been used to a specific way to view films and altering that in any way would simply take the audience out of that experience. Instead, only certain scenes will utilize HFR technology.
11. Not only did James Cameron shoot two full "Avatar" sequels at once, but he also waited to start filming until all the scripts for "Avatar 2," "Avatar 3," "Avatar 4" and "Avatar 5" were complete. He told Collider that his model was similar to what Peter Jackson did with his "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. "They took that chance to launch on all three of those films," Cameron said. "But he had the books mapped out, so he could always show the actors what they needed to know about their character arc. So I felt I had to do the same thing. I had to play this as if the books already existed. So the only way for us to do that was to write all the scripts and let the actors read all the scripts and see where their characters were going and what it all meant. Not that that's actable in the moment, but I think it's something that the actors could work into their preparation for their characters."
12. The Metkayina clan is known to be inspired by the Maori people of Earth, with Maori actors from the cast of the Avatar sequels working with James Cameron to incorporate elements of indigenous New Zealand cultures into the clan's customs and traditions. Notably, Cliff Curtis and James Cameron worked together to adapt a traditional haka dance into a Na'vi-inspired dance for the clan to perform, incorporating tail and ear movement. The tattoos of the clan also resemble traditional Maori tattoos in placement and style.
13. There is a 13 year gap between the first Avatar film and this film, giving it one of the longest development times as it was announced almost immediately following the first film's success.
14. When asked if there was a particular shot or scene or character that was the most difficult, Weta supervisor Joe Letteri stated: "The very first scene we did was the dialogue scene with Jake and Neytiri where they're in High Camp and Jake is trying to convince her to leave. And that was really bringing back the two characters from 15 years earlier, dusting them off, updating them to all the new software, the new detail in the skin, the new lighting techniques, the new hair, but also the new facial system. And that was really where we battle-tested pretty much everything except for the water, in that one scene. So we actually spent a year on that scene just to make sure we had it right and understood it. At that point, we started rolling it out to the other characters and, you know, branching out to do the rest of the shots."
15. In a December 2019 interview, Stephen Lang stated that his character was always meant to return in the sequels, as James Cameron had shared with him "that Quaritch had a future" while shooting the original film.
16. James Cameron was prepared to end the Avatar series after the third film if Avatar: The Way of Water isn't profitable, "The question is: how many people give a sh-t now?" he stated.
17. The film's producer Jon Landau revealed that Kate Winslet left production astounded when she managed to nearly hold her breath underwater for seven minutes. Speaking to the Daily Mail, Landau said: "Kate broke a free-diving record among the cast. It was six minutes 50-something -- but for Kate we agreed to call it seven. "She was phenomenal." Bailey Bass, who plays Winslet's daughter Tsireya in the film, added: "Kate holds the record she set it during training. I managed six minutes and 30 seconds."
18. While Landau declined to reveal the cost of the research and development phase for the sequels the first film has an estimated budget of $350 million, he credits studio 20th Century Fox with meeting the production's unique needs. (The first "Avatar" scored a lifetime gross of $2.92 billion, still the box-office champ of all time.) "I learned a lesson on 'Titanic' where we didn't push to get the R&D money enough for the sinking of the ship from different angles, and it caught us a little bit by surprise," Landau said. "That lesson taught me that if you push for the R&D money now and you do it right, you're going to end up with a much more efficient process." "Yes, our movies are big movies," he said. "But I honestly believe that if you look back at the movies that we've done, at the end of the day for what is up on the screen, they were done as efficiently as anybody could possibly do them."
19. The Avatar sequels will cost collectively over $1 billion.
20. James Cameron and Jon Landau confirms that Sony specifically listened to the request of Cameron to build a new camera called "Venice" Camera and Cameron also confirmed that he will shoot Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 (2024) with this Venice Camera.
21. James Horner had signed on to score the film, until his death in June 2015. The new composer is Simon Franglen.
22. When asked about how long he could hold his breath, Stephen Lang described the difference between holding your breath while acting and holding your breath while static. "I think I could do four, five minutes, but when you're acting, it's different," explained Lang. "That would be what we call a static hold. If I'm not doing anything, if I'm just hanging out in the water, I can hold my breath for a while. But when Sam Worthington pulls a knife on me 30 feet under then I can't stay under that long!"
23. Discussing the character of Tuk in a February 2019 interview, James Cameron mentioned that she was eight years old, and that the film would feature a scene between Jake and Neytiri taking place from Tuk's perspective: "There's a three-page argument scene between Jake and Neytiri, a marital dispute, very, very critical to the storyline. I wound up shooting it all from the point of view of the 8-year-old hiding under the structure and peeking in. Having gone through the experience with [Sam Worthington] on Avatar, I now knew how to write the Jake character going forward across the emotional rollercoaster of the next four movies."
24. Spider's mother's identity is revealed in the tie-in comic as Paz Socorro, a Scorpion pilot killed during the assault on the Tree of Souls.
25. Amrit or Amrita is a concept from Hindu mythology: it is a drink or food which makes the consumer immune to death, or, metaphorically, which addresses serious issues leading to death, such as antitoxins, vaccines, antidotes to poisons, etc. For example, vaccines have been called Amrit, as have revolutionary treatments like chemotherapy. This is a concept running through Hinduism from Vedic times.
26. Edie Falco revealed she shot her scenes over four years ago. So much time went by in between filming and the 2022 release date that Falco had simply assumed the movie opened in theaters already and just didn't perform too well. "I saw the first one when it was out," Falco said. "The second 'Avatar' I shot four years ago. I've been busy and doing stuff. Somebody mentioned 'Avatar' and I thought, 'Oh, I guess it came out and it didn't do very well because I didn't hear anything about it.' It happens! Someone recently said, '"Avatar" is coming out,' and I said, 'Oh, it hasn't come out yet?' I will never work again because I said that."
27. Edward Norton turned down a role after finding out he'd be playing a human, being more interested in playing a Na'vi. James Cameron, who still wanted to work with Norton, eventually had him cast as Nova in Alita: Battle Angel (2019).
28. Cameron's sequel required innovation on par with the original: the development of a new, underwater cinematic vernacular, and the technology to capture it. For virtual production supervisor Ryan Champney, the way into "The Way of Water" began in his bathtub. Since 2012, Champney was part of a small team tasked with building on technology used in the first movie and translating it into a water setting without losing the nuances of an actor's performance in the motion capture process. "Most movies get greenlit, there's a couple of months of prep and there are limits to what you can get done," he said. "And I think Jim has this ability to be, like, we've got to do this whether or not other people adopt this, let's push things forward." At first, production experimented shooting dry for wet, with performers in motion capture suits rigged on wires in the air, approximating in-water movement. Needless to say, Cameron didn't go for it. "We did A-B comparisons to show to Jim and said, 'Can you tell the difference?'" Champney said. "He said, 'I don't need to. We're going with the underwater solution.' He didn't even look at the test." Experiments at home, then in Landau's swimming pool, established methods for waterproofing cameras in submersible housings. But the water itself presented new issues. "We quickly found out that the infrared gets absorbed in water, which is normally how we do motion capture, so we had to go to ultraviolet light that would transmit through water but would also be picked up by the camera sensor," Champney said. "There wasn't a lot of information out there on the topic, so it was a lot of trial and error." As methodologies clicked into place, tests graduated to bigger and bigger locations -- a scuba training pool where a single figure could be captured in 3D; a large outdoor tank that could hold more performers. In the process, said Landau, "we realized that the performance capture system that worked above the water wasn't going to work under the water. We needed to create two different volumes, as we call it, but they had to work in sync with one another, because we need to be capturing someone jumping in above and capturing them below and making all those things work together."
29. Over an 18-month performance capture shoot that began in 2017, Kirk Krack's team, actors and crew logged more than 250,000 free dives. At its busiest, the tank set had 26 people underwater on breath hold with motorized water vehicles standing in for Pandoran sea creatures zooming around the space. But one of Krack's proudest moments was watching Sigourney Weaver, who was 69 years old when she began free diving training, outlast a stunt diver on breath hold while performing a scene as her new Na'vi character Kiri, the teenager Jake and Neytiri have adopted into their family. "It's like holding your breath and running," said Krack, who marveled as Weaver kept going for three minutes before heading back to the surface. "She was so immersed. She was her character. She did this massive breath hold on this huge active metabolic scene. I'm super proud, and that's a testament to all the work she put in." Swimming, much less free diving without breathing apparatus or scuba tanks, didn't come intuitively at first to actor Bailey Bass before she was cast in the sequels as Tsireya, a Metkayina teen who calls the ocean home. But for five months Bass, then 13, trained alongside her co-stars to breath hold for several minutes at a time. Given her character's comfort in the water, she also underwent scuba certification in Hawaii before filming her role over the course of two years as one of the "next generation" Na'vi characters introduced in "The Way of Water." "It was about getting to a point where you can have a calm breath hold and really be comfortable underwater," said Bailey, now 19, who also found that yoga practice helped. "Having the calmness of yoga allowed me to have longer breath holds and just chill out and meditate underwater." By the time back-to-back performance capture for the second, third and fourth films concluded, free diving had become second nature to the cast. "I was more comfortable underwater than I was running on land," Bass said. The average length of a dive for performance capture was 4 minutes, she said. To a non-diver, that might sound daunting. But Bass found it liberating. "When you're underwater and you're swimming and you're there, just you and no sound, it's so freeing," she said. "I would love to do it again."
30. Speaking to Digital Spy, Stephen Lang shared that he was told the entire arc for his character Colonel Miles Quaritch across the saga..Eventually I was, I have read all of the scripts," he said. "So I've read through to Avatar 5. So I know everything that happens to Quaritch. I give nothing away to say that Quaritch is running throughout, because [James Cameron] said that himself." But Lang added that his knowledge didn't have any effect on his performance in The Way Of Water. "I'm not skilful enough to do that," he continued. "I want to just be as honest and authentic within the framework of what we're trying to achieve at that moment. "Certainly there were always discussions about: well, what does this mean? Do we need this now? Because we're going to need this later. Or whatever. "But I'm not really thinking beyond the scope of The Way of Water when I do that."
31. Kate Winslet revealed that she has a video recording of her record-breaking underwater breath hold. "I have the video of me surfacing saying, 'Am I dead, have I died?' And then going, 'What was [my time]?'" Winslet said. "Straight away I wanted to know my time. And I couldn't believe it...The next thing I say is, 'We need to radio set. I wanted Jim to know right away." "She's not competitive at all," James Cameron added. "Well, I didn't have to hold my breath for over seven minutes," Winslet continued. "It's just that the opportunity to set a record presented itself. I wanted to break my own record, which was already six minutes and 14 seconds. And I was like, 'Come on!' So I smashed my own record by a minute."
32. For the tulkun's design and how it moved, production designer Dylan Cole referenced whales, sharks, and seals. "It was almost like more sea turtle/whale/seal because its tail could bifurcate and then fold down and flatten like a seal," he told IndieWire. "And so a lot of the movements weren't trying to have it move like a whale. If you notice, it twists a lot -- it curves on itself."
33. When asked why the movie is 3 hours, James Cameron revealed in an interview with Total Film: "The goal is to tell an extremely compelling story on an emotional basis, I would say the emphasis in the new film is more on character, more on story, more on relationships, more on emotion. We didn't spend as much time on relationship and emotion in the first film as we do in the second film, and it's a longer film, because there's more characters to service. There's more story to service." Above all, however, The Way Of Water is a family story. This is because, 14 years after falling in love, Jake and Neytiri are now the proud parents of five children. "People say, 'Oh my God, a family story from Disney? Just what we want' This isn't that kind of family story," Cameron clarifies. "This is a family story like how The Sopranos is a family story."
34. The release date was continually pushed back, eventually releasing in 2022. According to James Cameron this was because all the sequels were filmed 'back to back', similar to Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy.
35. The film reveals the Na'vi clans of Pandora have evolved to suit their own unique environments. The Metkayina, for example, have longer tails and thicker arms to help them swim, while the Omatikaya are thinner and with different muscle-structures, optimized for swinging and climbing. There are 15 different Na'vi clans, and presumably all of them have evolved in slightly different ways. The film also offers some subtle criticisms of the Na'vi, though, showing hints of racial prejudice based on these physiological differences. Metkayina are particularly unimpressed with Jake's children, whose five fingers signify human DNA rather than Na'vi. The Messianic subplot involving Kiri is important here, though, because it is interesting to note Eywa chose to sire a child through an avatar - presumably as a bridge between the Na'vi and the Sky People. The five fingers may hint at the deliberate birth of a new species of Na'vi, one optimized for using Sky People tools and technology.
36. This is the ninth film in history to cost $300 million or more, after Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015), Justice League (2017), Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019).
37. After the proof-of-concept stage, two massive tanks were engineered at Cameron and Landau's Lightstorm Entertainment hub at Manhattan Beach Studios, one used for training and more intimate character scenes. The larger second tank the "Swiss Army knife of water tanks," measuring 120 feet long, 60 feet wide and 30 feet deep with a 250,000-gallon capacity was outfitted with powerful wave and current machines, used to capture the film's more action-packed sequences involving Na'vi characters. Performance capture cameras were set up around the tanks' perimeter along with safety cameras for monitoring those in the water. To control light reflection from above, the water's surface was covered with small, white floating balls, inspired by an L.A. Times article Champney read about shade balls deployed in the Los Angeles Reservoir to reduce evaporation, and from a similar method Cameron used on his 1989 film "The Abyss." "Once we got it working, they started putting in vehicles and safety divers and waves and everything else. I was like, 'OK, we didn't test any of that.' But we made it work!" Champney said. "That's the good thing about Jim. He pushes it until it breaks and comes back a little bit, and then he says, 'Now work on the part that broke.'" To capture the underwater action with sufficient clarity, it was not possible for anyone in the tank to use scuba gear, because air bubbles might interfere with the accuracy of the sensors. So how could Cameron keep his cast in the water long enough to capture their performances the solution was both simpler and more complicated than the alternatives: Everyone including new and returning actors like Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Kate Winslet, reference camera operators, grips, and the safety divers accompanying each actor would have to work while holding their breath under water, requiring extensive training, additional safety procedures, and ample time.
38. For many of the scenes with Payakan, the art department made a large, practical fin that an actor could hold onto, such as when Lo'ak rides the creature. Then they had a spot for his eyes, so they could match the eye line during the interaction. "Sometimes we were dragging the fin through the water so you could have the proper resistance," said production designer Dylan Cole," and then other times when all the kids are climbing on him, we built a set that approximated his back with the blowholes and the plating, so that we could set that in the tank and they could perform on that."
39. According to Weta Digital, 57 new species of sea creatures were created for the film. Artists also consulted with researchers at Victoria University of Wellington about coral reef biology.
40. This sequel was announced in December 2009. Originally, James Cameron wanted to release it in 2015. After that, it was delayed to December 2016; after that, to December 2017. In April 2016, Cameron announced a delay of the release to December 2018. In March 2017, Cameron announced that the release wouldn't finally be in December 2018. On April 27, 2017, it was announced that the release would be on December 18, 2020. In May 2019, Disney announced that the release finally would be on December 17, 2021. On July 24, 2020, Disney announced that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the release of the film would be postponed to December 16, 2022.
41. Of the 3,240 effect shots Weta Digital did, 2,225 involved water.
42. For some of the underwater performance capture, actors played the tulkun with their legs bound together in the tank, in order for the creatures to perform human-like dance choreography. A scene with Tsireya dancing with her tulkun was cut from the final film.
43. Stephen Lang went into how the cast of the Avatar sequel trained in order to perform underwater scenes -- a process that included learning how to hold their breath for extended periods of time. "It was long, it was arduous, it was difficult, but very rewarding." Lang said. "We all have this capacity to hold our breath for long periods of time but we don't tap into it. But we learned to do that so we could actually act underwater. We'd do takes up to two minutes, There were those among us, Kate Winslet for example, could hold her breath for seven and a half minutes."
44. A title card reveals the Sky People's home is called "Bridgehead City," an important term because - in military strategy - a bridgehead is a strong position secured inside enemy territory from which to advance or attack.
45. James Cameron explained why he decided to portray Ronal as pregnant throughout the film. "Everybody's always talking about female empowerment. But what is such a big part of a woman's life that we, as men, don't experience?" Cameron said. He then went on to say that he wanted to explore the concept of female empowerment in the sequel. So he decided to introduce a female warrior who was six months pregnant in the battle. Cameron said, "Well, if you're really going to go all the way down the rabbit hole of female empowerment, let's have a female warrior who's six months pregnant in battle." He then explained that it might not have happened for years, but back in the day, women also had to "fight for survival" and for their children's protection. "And it didn't matter if they were pregnant," Cameron said.
46. Way of the Water took 14 days to gross $1 billion dollars. The original film took 19 days to hit the $1 billion mark.
47. Production designers Dylan Cole, Ben Procter, and the art department populated an entire ocean from the sea floor up, from many species of coral and water plants (many bioluminescent) to dozens of fish designs, covering bait fish to apex predators. Though their main reference for the akula was a great white on steroids, the source for the mouth was something scarier -- to Cole, at least. "Speaking from a personal fear, I don't like snakes," Cole added. "So I wanted to think of like a rattlesnake. And the way it really opens wide up top and even going further than a snake where the top of its mouth bifurcates open. And so to stick that kind of head on a shark, we tweaked the body."
48. Sam Worthington commented that he found the long underwater filming to be a particularly frightening experience, saying he had to overcome and face his fears.
49. James Cameron's first sequel since Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991).
50. Several creatures introduced in the theme park attraction Avatar Flight of Passage will be featured in the film.
51. On December 17, 2019, via filmmusicreporter.com, it was announced that Simon Franglen would be composing the score to Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 (2024). Fraanglen was originally arranger and score producer on the first movie and had numerous other collaborations with James Horner, who scored the first Avatar (2009), including Titanic (1997). Franglen composed the soundtrack to The Magnificent Seven (2016), of which seven original themes were written by Horner. James Horner died in 2015.
52. Sigourney mentions how the role of Kiri was first offered to her by director James Cameron. "I was having lunch with Jim, and he started to talk about this forest girl, who had a special gift of connection with living things, and she's gonna be about 14. [He said,] 'You and I know how immature you are, so I think you can handle this.' I said, 'Thank you.'" For Weaver, it wasn't difficult to get back into her younger self for the role. "I don't think any of us are very far away from our 14-year-old selves," Weaver said of the part. "It's such a strong memory, how great it was and how awful it was. I just sort of fell in love with the character. Jim has this amazing ability to write straight into the heart of a character." However, it did mean Weaver had to play the character very differently from her normal roles, which she found a very rewarding experience.
53. Kiri is said to be 14 years old, suggesting she was born in the year 2155, a year after the events of the first film.
54. Stephen Lang discussed the way Quaritch had changed between the first film, released in 2009, and its sequel. "In the original film, there was a wonderful, colourful character, but he really was primarily there as a function of evil. You know, he was there to be the conflict," he said. "And now I think he is that. He still is the source of conflict. But he's also something else again, as he becomes part of the landscape. He becomes part of Pandora, in a way, and that operates on him in very confusing ways."
55. According to The Visual Dictionary, Neteyam's bow is made from wood of the Hometree that fell in the first film.
56. Payakan's name resembles a portmanteau of the Na'vi words for "water" (pay) and "brother" (tsmukan).
57. James Cameron stated that he wanted the story to be very unpredictable, saying, "I guarantee you, you won't be able to predict it. What people hate the most is to go and see a movie and say 'oh predictable.' This is not predictable, I don't think."
58. The human skull on the 1st Recom logo features three scars across its head, reminiscent of the ones Miles Quaritch's human body gained during his first day on Pandora.
59. After being resurrected, Quaritch begins making the same "not in Kansas" speech that he made in the first film. The line is a hint for the classic The Wizard of Oz (1939), turned in popular icon after the movie, referring about someone far from home.
60. Director of Photography Peter Zuccarini has long been the go-to cameraman for filmmakers who need difficult underwater shots he was dragged by a shark while filming "Into the Blue" and ventured into a crocodile-infested section of the Amazon (rumored to be cursed by locals) for "The Motorcycle Diaries" but nothing in his career prepared him for the sequel to Cameron's groundbreaking science-fiction epic. While Zuccarini has found that on most shoots there's always a limit to what can be done given time and money, in Cameron he found a director unique in his refusal to settle. "With the specificity of someone like Jim, it has to be exactly what he imagines or better," Zuccarini said. "It takes a long time because there are no compromises."
61. Kirk Krack, founder of Performance Freediving International, worked as a free-diving trainer for the cast and crew for the underwater scenes
62. James Cameron revealed there won't be a director's cut of the film.
63. Director James Cameron and cinematographer Russell Carpenter spoke about Jack Champion's role as Spider in the sequel. When asked how difficult it was to film Champion in this movie's various environments, both filmmakers explained that it was "hideously difficult," specifically due to the fact that he was used in "so many scenes and so many different environments:" Carpenter stated: "No, I would say painstakingly difficult. Because he was in so many scenes and so many different environments. You really had to nail down exactly when, and where, and how the light is and maybe where shafts of sunlight are hitting. If any of those cues are off, the audience is gonna think something's out of whack. And so, we worked really, really hard."
64. According to The Visual Dictionary, Neteyam's neckpiece is stylized after the classic neckpieces that the legendary warriors of his clan would wear, including Tsu'tey, showing Neteyam's desire to be a strong warrior. Neteyam also made it himself, since making one's own clothing or being given clothing by loved ones is very important to the Na'vi, meaning their clothing and accessories are very symbolic.
65. According to The Visual Dictionary, Tuk's shell armband was made by Jake to her as a gift.
66. Disney's Animal Kingdom Park in Orlando, Florida, opened Pandora as a themed area in the park on May 27, 2017. It is inspired by James Cameron's Avatar (2009) and features Pandora's floating mountains, alien wildlife, and bioluminescent plants. It includes two major attractions, Avatar Flight of Passage and Na'vi River Journey, as well as retail and dining outlets.
67. Lo'ak's name is similar to lo'akur, the Na'vi word for the Toruk Makto Amulet.
68. Quaritch holds the skull of deceased Colonel Miles Quaritch like Hamlet holds Yorick's skull in William Shakespeare's play "Hamlet" and the scene symbolizes the inevitable decay of the human body. The scene was improvised by Stephen Lang.
69. According to the Avatar: The Way of Water: The Visual Dictionary, amrita is always spelt lowercase.
70. Parallels are a constant in the sequel; the ending sequence is a testament to this. The first film ends with Jake Sully opening his eyes in his permanent Na'vi body. The film also closes in on Jake's eyes. Whether filmmakers intended for the moment to be significant, the moment is vital under the surface. A consistent theme in the movie is how the characters "see" each other, and not in the physical sense, but more so in how they respect and understand one another. The visual of Jake's pair of eyes looking directly into the camera is not just a reflection of its predecessor but the idea that he's embracing the world through a new set of eyes.
71. The Akula was based on the Dunkleosteus.
72. The watercraft and uniforms of the whaling crew bear the label CET-OPS, which stands for Cetacean Operations. Cetacean means related to whales, and is reflected in taxonomy: Cetacean is the infraorder of animals that comprises whales.
73. James Cameron was set on shooting the (many) water sequences in actual water to make the scenes as real as possible. As visual effects supervisor, Richie Baneham, explained in an interview, "If an actor is genuinely in water, there's a viscous resistance. It informs the actor's choices. That's what makes it feel real."
74. Quaritch does so well fighting underwater because he also knows breath-holding techniques. The colonel is shown to exert himself while holding his breath several times in the first film. The human Quaritch got good at holding his breath because he knew that an exo-pack wouldn't always be at the ready, something he likely learned on his first day on Pandora, since whatever clawed his face clearly would've ripped his mask off.
75. In a interview with Esquire Middle East, James Cameron revealed he cut portions of the sequel depicting gun violence because he no longer wants to "fetishize the gun." "I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action," Cameron said. "I wanted to get rid of some of the ugliness, to find a balance between light and dark. You have to have conflict, of course. Violence and action are the same thing, depending on how you look at it. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I'm known as an action filmmaker."
76. Alicia Vela-Bailey (Zdinarsk) chewed bubble gum on set, James Cameron loved it so much that he had her redo her scenes while blowing bubbles.
77. James Horner, who scored several of Cameron's films as well as the first Avatar film, was originally slated to compose the score for this film and its sequels, but his fatal plane crash in 2015 ended any chances of him staying as the franchise's composer, leading Simon Franglen to take over Horner's intended scoring duties.
78. Tonowari wears a necklace crafted with akula teeth. "Akula" is a Russian word for "shark".
79. One of the few differences between the Avatar bodies used by humans and the Na'vi individuals is their number of fingers. While the importance of having one less finger is never mentioned, it clearly shows their biological deviation. Jake has five fingers, while Neytiri and the other Na'vi have four. Unsurprisingly, they're called out on the fact when they seek refuge with the Metkayina clan. Two of Jake and Neytiri's biological children, Tuk and Neteyam, have four digits, while their middle biological son Lo'ak and adopted daughter Kiri have distinct five. Though the fact is such a small detail, it feels thoughtful.
80. Sigourney Weaver described the relationship of her character, Kiri and Jake Champion's character, Miles Socorro, like an "important relationship for the saga".
81. Supervising master diver John Garvin, stated that more than 200,000 dives had gone into making what he thought was the "most complicated diving movie ever made." In the interview, he expressed that this number includes the amount of free dives, which were also difficult to log because some of them ranged from 30 to 60 seconds, while others were consistently longer. Garvin explained that on a typical busy shoot day, you'd see 26 scuba divers and free divers in the water at once, going up and down like yo-yos. That's not forgetting about the grip and lighting department who were forever submerging to tweak something on the set.
82. The ilu's body was inspired by the manta ray while its neck was inspired by the Plesiosaurus.
83. Jack Champion spoke about how he was integrated into the CGI scenes, and how he had to adapt to working alongside huge Na'vi puppets in place of the other actors. He said "We had this acting troupe that would basically re-act what the actors did just for my sake," He continued "but they'd wear this giant Na'vi puppet on their shoulders, so there'd be a torso here and then a head up here, and then they'd control the arms with little sticks -- foam Na'vi that were actually 10-feet tall for us to look at."
84. Co-writer Rick Jaffa revealed that one of the sequel's original plans was for the Na'vi people to fight their enemies in space, but the idea ended up being scrapped entirely. "There was an idea of a space battle. This idea gained a lot of traction in early drafts and we talked about it a lot. However, we started to realize that it might not come naturally. How would that work with the story we're telling? Jim said, 'Well, give me a few weeks.' He went out and wrote an entire script, and by the way, a brilliant script, but ultimately the whole script was thrown out because it just didn't work with the story we were planning."
85. In Spain the movie was titled "Avatar: El sentido del agua", instead the more accurate "Avatar: El camino del agua". However, in Spanish the word "sentido" has two main meanings, one as "sense" in a physical way (i.e.: sense of sight, hearing) and another as "reason", "mean" or "purpose", in a moral or spiritual way, which is more appropiate in Tsireya's speech to Lo'ak. "The way of water has no beginning and no end. Our hearts beat in the womb of the world. The sea is your home, before your birth and after your death. The sea gives and the sea takes. Water connects all things: life to death, darkness to light."
86. Jake raises the newly born Neteyam into the air for his entire tribe to see in a manner very reminiscent of the iconic lift from The Lion King (1994).
87. Actress Alicia Vela-Bailey (Zdinarsk) previously played Ikeyni, leader of the Tayrangi Clan in the first movie.
88. Zoe Saldana and Jack Champion both appeared in Avengers: Endgame (2019), which briefly held the the title of highest grossing film of all time before a rerelease of Avatar (2009) took back the title.
89. Audiences taking notice of costumes and accessories in the first film may notice that the necklace Grace Augustine wears is Na'vi jewelry. Not only is Grace wearing a Na'vi necklace, but she also received it from Neytiri's late sister. Of course, Grace isn't exactly back in the sequel in the same sense as Quaritch, her daughter, Kiri, adorns the same necklace throughout the film. The nod to the character's reverence for Na'vi culture and taking place as her daughter's heirloom is a heartwarming and touching detail that might have been missed.
90. Miles Socorro was previously known as "Javier Socorro" during production. At some point, his first name was changed to "Miles" which was confirmed in The High Ground.
91. Costume designer Deborah L. Scott stated about the Recoms that they were inspired by real-world military: "They're like the Special Forces." They are also reminiscent of the MACV-SOG (whose logo features a human skull as well), which conducted the same kind of unconventional operations during the Vietnam War.
92. Production Designer Dylan Cole revealed the gill mantle, which is what the Metkayina use to breathe, is sort of like a jellyfish meeting a ray. It functions as a living underwater scuba. He stated: "That was an idea of Jim's. We had to kind of distill his foggy vision of it down to reality. Ultimately, it was a very beautiful thing, but how do you serve this story's needs? Let it be a beauty moment as well, where he described that as sort of like angel wings around you, and then even how it kind of grabs you around the ribs to hold on. It was both an elegant storytelling solution and an elegant visual solution, I think."
93. The film crew developed new methods to film motion capture underwater. The crew first experimented with rigging actors in the air on wires while wearing motion-capture suits, to simulate motions in the water. But Cameron rejected it without even seeing a test, according to The Los Angeles Times. When pivoting to actual underwater filmmaking, they "quickly found out that the infrared gets absorbed in water, which is normally how we do motion capture, so we had to go to ultraviolet light that would transmit through water but would also be picked up by the camera sensor," production supervisor Ryan Champney told The Times. "The Way of Water" and its underwater filming seem heavily inspired by Cameron's own passion for oceans and deep-sea diving.
94. "Socorro" is a Spanish word that it means "help", "aid" or "relief" in Spanish as in Portuguese. It is also a real Hispanic/Latino surname.
95. James Cameron went on to describe how he wanted to go beyond the boundaries to explore the real meaning of women's empowerment. He said, "To me, it was the last bastion that you don't see." The director further said, "Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, all these other amazing women come up, but they're not moms and they're not pregnant while they're fighting evil." This is not the first time Cameron has expressed his opinion toward female superheroes. Earlier, in August of 2022 he called Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman "a step backward." He once again shared his criticism of the character while calling the Amazonian superhero an "objectified icon." The director of Wonder Woman films, Patty Jenkins, replied to Cameron's previous comments on the DC character. She said that he could not understand what the character stands for and that not every female character has to look tough and strong.
96. There is a sense of irony in his casting because Cliff Curtis portrayed another leader in another "Avatar" film: Fire Lord Ozai from The Last Airbender. It is ironic because Tonowari and Ozai represent the opposite elements (water and fire), Tonowari is a good-natured character while Ozai is a villain, as well as the fact that The Last Airbender is generally critically panned while The Way of Water has received general acclaim.
97. Two massive tanks were engineered at Manhattan Beach Studios to help bring Cameron's wet-for-wet plan to life. One of the tanks was used for training and intimate character moments, whilst the other beast of a tank (measuring 120 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 30 feet deep with a 250,000-gallon capacity, to be exact) was full of wave and current machines designed to enhance the action-packed sequences.
98. As shown through Payakan's vision, Tulkuns can see color, although it is slightly yellowed. This shows that unlike whales and dolphins, tulkuns are not colorblind.
99. Neteyam as an infant that Jake presents to the Omatikaya at the beginning, is played by Oliver Moore, the then 3-month-old son of Joel Moore. Moore mentioned in an interview that Zoe Saldaña (mother of three sons) took care of Oliver on set and that he started crying while shooting the scene because it was his son. The scene was completed after two or three takes in a single day.
100. James Cameron spoke about his decision to shoot Avatar 2 alongside the third and fourth movies. It's simple: those kids just grow up too fast. "Otherwise, you get and I love Stranger Things, but you get the Stranger Things effect where they're supposed to still be in high school [but] they look like they're 27. "You know, I love the show. It's okay, we'll suspend disbelief. We like the characters, but, you know."
101. In its appearance, the Sea Dragon is a grim mirror image of the Tulkun it hunts. The craft has a similar sleek yet square and looming profile, with "horns" protruding on top. Its bow, like a Tulkun's mouth, slides open in multiple sections to swallow its prey. The bottom of its keel has streamlined striations on it, like the pleats on a cetacean throat. It's massive and tough, and is only mortally "wounded" by a crippling strike from the inside. And when it sinks, the metal groans and screeches like a dying beast.
102. The film's logo was created by Chris Ables on which the franchise's new font is based. It was created by John Roshell.
103. Zoe Saldana spoke in an interview before the movie release about the first movies re release in theaters, speaking about the cultural side of it: So yeah, it is prepping us," the actress said. "It's giving us an opportunity to celebrate something that was deeply remarkable and groundbreaking and prepping us also for the future of what's to come in 'Avatar: The Way of Water.' And remember, too, it's been 12, 13 years since the release of 'Avatar.' So there is a whole generation that was either too young to experience Avatar." Worthington said many audience members weren't alive when the first movie premiered, and Saldana continued. "Or not born yet! So, now it gives us an even bigger opportunity to create new fans, even within a generational family, multi-generational in a family. And that's quite exciting."
104. Jon Landau confirmed that Scoresby will return in Avatar 3.
105. As with the 2009 movie, when filming on set, James Cameron shot native 3D; Letteri notes that they also innovated on these sets. "Basically [we developed] live depth compositing," he explains. "What that meant is that when Jim was walking through the set and a character was interacting with a virtual character, that virtual character could appear in the live feed, but in the proper place in [3D] depth." This was enabled by newly developed AI-driven software that effectively took the images from the camera system and calculated 3D depth on the fly.
106. The digital water in the film was created by artists using Weta's latest Loki simulation software after the Weta FX team did a deep dive into understanding water. "What's the color of the water? How should the light actually travel through it?" were some of the questions they addressed, says Metkayina Village and reefs VFX supervisor Pavani Boddapati. Adds Jonathan Nixon, effects supervisor for water and fire, "A good portion of this film is computer-generated water because we just got to a point where it looked so good, it was easier just to replace [the actual water] and integrate it [into the shots]."
107. When Dylan Cole found out that he and Ben Procter would be elevated to production designers for the Avatar franchise with the sequel The Way of Water, after serving as concept art directors for the original sci-fi epic, the news was "super exciting," albeit "a little intimidating." After all, he notes, it would be a rigorous, nine-and-a-half-year journey to bring the new film to life. And in the course of making this one title, he would really be thinking of four, which should amount in the end to a "cohesive saga."
108. A large part of the movie takes place underwater, and that too was a unique, wondrous environment that needed to be designed. "You go on this amazing adventure in this alien world, but it's to reflect back on how we exist here on Earth. In order to establish that metaphor and connection, it couldn't look wildly different," production designer Dylan Cole explained. "We started going more exotic with the coral structures and trying to enforce the sort of Eywa [the deity of the Na'vi] intelligent design aspect of it." That included looking at fractal references.
109. After winning the oscar for "Best Achievement in Visual Effects",visual effects supervisor Eric Saindon ended up having to be rushed out of The Academy Awards ceremony after his win, in order to have emergency surgery. Representatives from Weta FX informed the public that Eric Saindon started having abdominal discomfort early in the day of The Oscars, and checked into a Beverly Hills hospital by lunchtime that day. He was cleared of appendicitis and/or kidney stones as immediate concerns and was discharged on painkillers to attend The Oscars ceremony that evening. It was during The Oscars that Saindon started to experience more pain; he held out long enough to win his award for Visual Effects but had to cut his press interviews afterward short, in order to be taken to the hospital again. Ultimately it was determined that Saindon was suffering from a ruptured small intestine.
110. Tsireya does not actually have two hair braids on her forehead; they are actually simply woven seagrass according to the Visual Dictionary.
111. When Tsireya emerges from the water when she first appears, if one looks closely at her eyes, it can be seen that her eyes have a translucent membrane which opens up. It is also known as the nictitating membrane or "third eyelid" which members of her clan have evolved to help them see underwater.
112. In the Japanese dub, Maaya Uchida (Tsireya) and Yuma Uchida (Spider) are siblings in real life.
113. Zachary Berger, who created the akula, also designed the fish that Lo'ak hunts with a speargun.
114. Marc Maron auditioned for the role of Dr. Garvin but ultimately Jemaine Clement got cast.
115. When Jake finds Neteyam injured on the ground after the train raid goes awry, he first checks his son's back before carrying him to safety. He also scolds Lo'ak that he almost got his older brother killed. In the third act, Neteyam gets shot, and Jake checks his back only to see that the shot has pierced through his back, meaning the wound is fatal and there's no saving him. Lo'ak later blames himself for Neteyam's death, as Neteyam was only trying to keep him out of harm's way.
116. Jake and Neytiri's adopted teenage daughter, Kiri, involved some delicate consideration. In the story, Kiri is the biological daughter of Grace, the scientist played by Weaver in 2009's Avatar. "What you're seeing onscreen is Sigourney's performance, 100 percent," says Barrett. "All of the underwater stuff, she did it. She could sit at the bottom of that pool for minutes, doing these performances. It was really quite impressive." To get the character just right, the crew at Weta assembled photos of Weaver as a teenager, as well as footage from some of her early movies, to give the team nuanced references in how her face moved at that age because, as all faces do, "the face changes a fair bit the older we get, muscles change," Barrett says. To ensure that all motion was exact, there were "certain occasions" when a body or stunt double was involved for specific types of movement.
117. To get the vital facial performances, Weta FX developed a new stereo camera head rig, and accompanying software for facial capture, to bring the actor's undiluted performances to their characters. Explains Letteri: "The software is a neural network that webuilt as an animation tool that let's us try to figure out how the muscles react to each other. It gives the animators a lot more control in interpreting a performance than we've ever had before." Emphasizes Cameron: "It's 100 percent actor-driven. Sometimes our biggest challenge can be in a simple two-character dialouge scene. You have to have every nuance of what the actor does. As a director and working with the actors, it's a very pure art form. It's like a stage rehearsal."
118. Senior animation supervisor Dan Barrett says the skimwings were inspired by flying fish that "can sustain flight for quite a while. They can do as the skimwings do; they can fully leave the water or they can have this kind of wing and ground effect where they're receiving lift off the water surface to their wings and propelling themselves, thrust from the tail in the water."
119. For the design of the Metkayina village, production designer Dylan Cole says he referenced Indigenous cultures in the South Pacific for the design, but "the main thing was figuring out how this is engineered. And how are you reinforcing story? Something very important to the Na'vi is connectivity, and so it was very important to Jim and to us that this village is connected." That's why the walkways and dwellings resemble a neural network. "That worked thematically, [along with] showing that they live in harmony with the water."
120. To populate the underwater world, production designer Dylan Cole noted, James Cameron "wanted a level of biomass density of life that we haven't seen on this planet since the prehistoric era, when there was, it's been estimated, at least 10 to 20 times the amount of sea life there is now." To meet this directive, hundreds of aquatic species were designed.
121. At first glance, Kiri's affectionately mocking nickname of "Monkey Boy" for Spider is nothing remarkable. This is hardly the first work in which humans have been compared to monkeys. However, Pandora doesn't have monkeys, and the closest equivalent - the Prolemuris - doesn't appear to be referred to as one. This would seem to imply that Kiri, having her mother's passion for biology, learned about monkeys from human scientists and/or educational material about Earth, and decided that Spider was a dead ringer for one. This also furthers how in touch Jake and Neytiri's children are with their human roots as much as their Na'vi lineage.
122. Another new tool gave actors reference for eyelines and performance, with a cable-suspended camera system, but the team replaced the camera with a monitor. Says Letteri: "All the live-action characters, when they had to interact with CG characters, had something flying around the set with the performance in the right place in space. [It provided] the ability for the live-action characters to play live off their CG counterparts. "These are just all tools to build this story," he concludes. "We knew it was going to be a big story and a lot of emotional beats with the characters, and that's really where we were putting all the effort."
123. Two scenes in the film don't contain VFX according to VFX animators Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, and Eric Saindon at the BAFTA's (British Academy Film Awards), where the group revealed the identity of the two scenes in question. "There's one of Spider's [Jack Champion] eyeball and there's one of the bottom of the ocean and just some ripples in the bottom of the water," revealed Snider. Sandon went on to add, "There's lots of live action, lots of characters with CG but every other scene, VFX shots were touched."
124. The gill mantle was based on a manta ray and a jellyfish.
125. In a 2022 interview with Screen Rant, James Cameron explained the standards he set for the writing team regarding the sequel: "The first thing I challenged them with is - 'Before we start talking about new stories, let's figure out how the first story worked. What were people keying into? What was working for them?' We had a lot of discussions about that and every idea that we came up with as we went along had to measure up against that standard. It had to hit the heart, it had to hit the mind, it had to hit the imagination, and it had to hit something even deeper, which we had a hard time quantifying, but something - you could call it spiritual, you could call it subconscious - some kind of connection that you can't even really describe in words. And I said 'If we can't do THAT again, then we're gonna fail.'"
126. Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) is one of the biggest box office hits of all time, raking in $2.2 billion worldwide.
127. Jack spent five years travelling around the world getting into shape, learning skills like parkour, ju-jitsu, and boxing. "It was insane, coming from Virginia, going to train in Hawaii, then going to LA, for performance capture," he said. His intense workout routine "helped" him immerse in Spider. "You can just dive into the character's mindset more when you're away from home, away from your roots, and away from the stuff that makes you you," he says. "You're completely separate. It's easy to become someone else."
128. James Cameron cut down Neyetam's funeral, uniquely showcasing Na'vi burial practices as Neteyam is seemingly laid to rest.
129. The concept of letting Payakan express himself through his eyes was inspired by Mike Wazowski, the green one-eyed walking eyeball from Monsters, Inc. (2001) The idea originally started as a joke, but the production designers around Dylan Cole soon realized that Payakan poses the same problem of conveying expressions through only one eye.
130. Jack Champion, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the strange experience of watching it and seeing the movie jump between him at different ages. He was cast in the film at the age of 12, and he's now 18. "In every scene I see myself in, I remember how I felt on that day. So it is kind of a time capsule, but at the same time, I can also turn that off and just get lost in my enjoyment of the movie and story. So it's cool to see my teenage years onscreen, but I can still get immersed in the world of Pandora," he said.
131. Lo'ak has braids that hang down over his right eye. James Cameron insisted on this as a reference to John Connor's hairstyle from Terminator 2 (1991).
132. The only 20th Century Studios film that financed with TSG Entertainment II.
133. When Sky army captures and kills a Tulkun, they extract a golden yellow fluid/elixir from its brain and referred it as 'Amrita' which will stop aging. The term Amrita is a Sanskrit word that means "immortality" which is referred within many Indian religions. This is another Sanskrit word used by James Cameron. He named this film series title as 'Avatar' which is also a Sanskrit word meaning a manifestation of divinity in bodily form.
134. Kate Winslet was impressed upon hearing that Ronal would be a fierce pregnant Na'vi because she felt pregnant women are often not represented enough in media despite that many women will become pregnant throughout their lives, and even if they are represented, they are often portrayed as being merely passive baby carriers who do little to nothing to impact the story. In The Way of Water, Ronal saves Kiri's life and helps out on the battlefield.
135. Neytiri can be seen wearing Neteyam's neckpiece at his funeral.
136. One of the hardest designs for production designer Dylan Cole was the inside of Payakan for a scene when he invites Lo'ak to tap into his large, colorful membrane to glimpse the creature's most tragic memory. "It's Jonah, right? Going into the mouth of the whale," Cole said. "But it's also an enchanted cave from old fantasy stories. So it's sort of combining those two things and getting that bioluminescent pattern. The roof and the sides of the mouth are our kind of standard bioluminescent colors -- the cyan and blues. And then what we did is just concentrate on it to give you a focal point where we start getting into some of the purples and then when it unfurls it becomes gold. It was important for their relationships that [Lo'ak] understand the history of Payakan."
137. Similar to how avatar Grace could be seen wearing Sylwanin's necklace, Kiri can be seen wearing human Grace's necklace.
138. Before his death, Neteyam says he wishes to go home. This can be seen as ironic foreshadowing because Tsireya mentions the sea is one's home, and Neteyam ends up being buried in the ocean. Jake also ends up saying Awa'atlu is their new home.
139. In the end credits was intially to be "Specially Formatted Exclusively in IMAX Theaters" but it was change to "Optimized for IMAX Theaters'' despite YouTube has uploaded on trailer last May.

Genre

Action,Adventure,Fantasy

Cast

as Jake

as Neytiri

as Kiri

as Quaritch

as Ronal

as Tonowari

as Norm

as Mo'at

as General Ardmore

as Scoresby

as Dr. Garvin

as Neteyam

as Lo'ak

as Tuk

as Spider

as Tsireya

as Aonung

as Rotxo