Premiere - Avatar: The Way of Water : Relive the Los Angeles premiere in pictures and videos

By Mulder, Californie, Los Angeles, Hollywood, Dolby Theatre, 12 december 2022

"It's never been done before and it's very tricky because our motion capture system, like most motion capture systems, is what they call optical base, meaning that it uses markers that are photographed with hundreds of cameras. The problem with water is not the underwater part, but the interface between the air and the water, which forms a moving mirror. That moving mirror reflects all the dots and markers, and ... it creates thousands of false targets, so we've had to figure out how to get around that problem, which we did. ... It's taken us about a year and a half now to work out how we're going to do it."- James Cameron

The Los Angeles premiere of the highly anticipated Avatar: The Way of Water was held las t night tonigh at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California with the film's cast and crew in attendance. Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Britain Dalton, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jamie Flatters, Bailey Bass, Jack Champion, Joel David Moore walked the blue carpet, surrounded by director/producer/writer James Cameron, producer Jon Landau and composer Simon Franglen.

Itw Jon Landau

Itw Sigourney Weaver

Itw Simon Franglen

Itw Sam Worthington

Itw Britain Dalton

Itw CJ Jones

Itw Dileep Rao

Itw Duane Evans Jr

Itw Jack Champion

Itw Jamie Flatters

Itw Joel David Moore

Itw Matt Gerald

Discover the official photos on our Flickr page

Avatar: The Way of Water is a 2022 American epic science fiction film and the sequel to the 2009 film Avatar, both directed by James Cameron. The film is distributed by 20th Century Studios, as the second installment in the Avatar film series. Cameron produced the film with Jon Landau and wrote the screenplay with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, which is based on a story the three wrote with Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno. Cast members Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Dileep Rao, and Matt Gerald reprise their roles from the original film, with Sigourney Weaver returning in a different role. New cast members include Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, and Brendan Cowell. Cameron, who had stated in 2006 that he would like to make sequels to Avatar if it was successful, announced the first two sequels in 2010 following the widespread success of the first film, with The Way of Water aiming for a 2014 release. However, the addition of three more sequels (to the first one) and the necessity to develop new technology in order to film performance capture scenes underwater, a feat never accomplished before, led to significant delays to allow the crew more time to work on the writing, pre-production, and visual effects. Preliminary shooting for the film began in Manhattan Beach, California, on August 15, 2017, followed by principal photography simultaneously with Avatar 3 in Wellington on September 25, 2017. Filming wrapped in late September 2020 after over three years of shooting. The film's theatrical release has been subject to repeated delays, with the latest occurring on July 23, 2020. The film is currently planned for a release on December 16, 2022, with the following three sequels to be released, respectively, in 2024, 2026 and 2028, though the latter two would depend on the commercial performance of The Way of Water. Being made on an estimated budget of $350–400 million, it is one of the most expensive films of all time.

Avatar: The Way of Water had entered production and started preliminary shooting on August 15, 2017, with Manhattan Beach, California, as the main shooting location. Principal photography started on September 25, 2017, simultaneously with Avatar 3. As Sigourney Weaver later revealed in November, filming had to be moved around to allow her to film a cameo appearance in the series eight finale of Doc Martin. On November 23, Cameron stated that the crew had been undergoing tests with the cast for the last month to film underwater scenes in performance capture, and that they succeeded in filming the first of those on November 14, featuring six of their seven main child actors, including Trinity Bliss.He stated "we're getting really good data, beautiful character motion and great facial performance capture. We've basically cracked the code".He said that tests would last until January 2018, as "we're still working in our small test tank. We graduate to our big tank in January". It was "a dialogue scene", as according to Cameron, the characters communicate via "a kind of a sign language". On April 30, 2018, Kate Winslet had "just a couple days" of shooting left to do.While filming an underwater scene, Winslet held her breath for over seven minutes, breaking the record for longest breath held while shooting a film scene underwater, a record previously held by Tom Cruise for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. In May 2018, Saldaña stated that filming was "kind of only halfway done" and that the crew is "about [to finish] motion capture production on the [second and third] movies, and then after that, they go straight into pre-production for the live-action part that would shoot for six months in New Zealand." Saldaña finished shooting her scenes on June 8, for both Avatar 2 and its sequel, while Cameron stated around the same time that 130 days of performance capture had been shot. On November 14, 2018, Cameron announced filming with the principal performance capture cast had been completed.

In February 2019, Landau stated that live-action filming for Avatar 2 and 3 would commence in New Zealand in the spring of 2019. Cameron confirmed later the same month that they had only wrapped for the motion capture parts. Now, that is the vast majority of the characters and it is the vast majority of the running time of the film[s]. But that pesky little live action component is going to cost me five months of my life across the two movies."Filming for 2019 concluded on November 29, to resume the following year in New Zealand. On March 17, 2020, Landau announced that the filming of the Avatar sequel films in New Zealand had been postponed indefinitely in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also confirmed that production would remain in Los Angeles. However, virtual production continued in Manhattan Beach, California while visual effects continued at Weta Digital in Wellington. In early May, health and safety production protocols had been endorsed by the New Zealand government, allowing filming to resume in the country. On June 1, 2020, Landau posted a picture of himself and Cameron on Instagram, showing that they had returned to New Zealand to resume filming. After their arrival, Cameron and 55 other crew members who had traveled to New Zealand started a 2-week government-supervised isolation period at a hotel in Wellington before they would resume filming. This would make Avatar 2 and 3 the first major Hollywood blockbusters to resume production after postponing filming due to the pandemic. On June 16, 2020, Cameron resumed filming and Landau posted a photo of his crew on Instagram filming the production. In September 2020, Cameron confirmed that live action filming in New Zealand had been completed, therefore completing the shooting of the film altogether after over three years; he estimated Avatar 3 to be "95%" completed, due to having live-action parts yet to be filmed outside of New Zealand. In July 2022, the New Zealand Film Commission disclosed that the Avatar sequels had received over NZ$140 million worth of public funding through the country's Screen Production Grant. By comparison, The Hobbit trilogy had received NZ$161 million in film subsidies. While ACT party deputy leader Brooke van Velden criticised the Government's film subsidy programme for allegedly taking public funding from other areas, the Economic Development and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash argued that New Zealand's film subsidies for major Hollywood products brought much needed overseas investment and jobs to the New Zealand film industry.

On July 31, 2017, it was announced that Wētā FX had commenced work on the Avatar sequels. The film will heavily feature underwater scenes, actually filmed underwater with the cast in performance capture. Blending underwater filming and performance capture being a feature never accomplished before, it took the team a year and a half to develop a new motion capture system. Landau stated in November 2015 that Avatar 2 would have a number of major technological improvements since the first movie. A lot more of the lighting work on the virtual production stage could be done during production instead of post-production, and like Alita: Battle Angel, which is produced and co-written by Cameron, the crew can use two lightweight HD head cams to record the actors' facial performance. In addition they also used two digital puppets instead of just one; one that is an accurate copy of the real actor, and another that is the actor's character, allowing the team to re-target one onto the other to make it as accurate as possible.Cameron stated that there was possibility that the film could be shown in "glasses-free 3D", along with the sequels. But he later disagreed with these rumors and did not think the technology would be there yet. The film was completed on November 23, 2022.

Avatar composer James Horner was originally reported to score music for the franchise, before his death in a plane crash in June 2015. In December 2019, Simon Franglen, who had previously worked with both Cameron and Horner as record producer and arranger since 1997's Titanic, including on Avatar (notably completing Horner's score for 2016's The Magnificent Seven after his passing), was reported to write music for the film. Landau confirmed his involvement in the project in August 2021, while also associating with the forthcoming Avatar sequels. Horner's score will be reused in the film, in addition to the original themes produced by Franglen. The scoring for the film officially began on July 29, 2022, at the Newman Scoring Stage in 20th Century. The soundtrack album will be released by Hollywood Records. In November, it was reported that the film would feature an original song titled "Song Chord" which will be performed by Franglen and Zoe Saldana. The following month, it was announced that recording artist The Weeknd will also contribute an original song to the film.

Synopsis :
Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, Avatar: The Way of Water tells the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri and their children), the trials they face, the paths they must take to protect each other, the battles they must fight to stay alive and the tragedies they endure.

Avatar: The Way of Water
Directed by James Cameron
Screenplay by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Story by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman, Shane Salerno
Based on Characters by James Cameron
Produced by James Cameron, Jon Landau
Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet
Cinematography : Russell Carpenter
Edited by Stephen E. Rivkin, David Brenner, John Refoua, James Cameron
Music by Simon Franglen
Production companies : Lightstorm Entertainment, TSG Entertainment
Distributed by 20th Century Studios
Release date : December 14, 2022 (France), December 16, 2022 (United States)
Running time : 192 minutes