Avatar: The Way of Water is anticipated to be "more emotional" than the first movie.
Finally in cinemas next week, this long-awaited sequel to James Cameron's groundbreaking and visually staggering Avatar held its world premiere in London yesterday (December 6), where the cast and crew got chatting to Digital Spy.
Producer Jon Landau told us: "What I'm most excited about seeing is a whole new level of what I think of as a cinema experience – an immersive experience, but people think of that on a visual sense, I'm talking about an emotional sense.
Related: Avatar's Stephen Lang "was weeping" after reading sequel script
"This is a movie that is more emotional, I believe, than the first Avatar but still with all of the wonder that the first Avatar had," he added.
The 2009 original was more of a curtain-raiser for the planet Pandora and its blue humanoid Na'vi, while this next storyline centres on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) as they battle to keep their family safe.
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Newcomers Trinity Jo-Li Bliss and Jamie Flatters play the couple's youngest and eldest children Tuk and Neteyam, while Britain Dalton (Goliath) and Sigourney Weaver (Alien) slide in as son Lo'ak and adopted teenager Kiri.
Related: Avatar has returned to Disney+ ahead of The Way of Water's release
"[James Cameron] brought the reality of family in the script, you know, he always writes in universal stories and he chose to tell this story about family but not just from the parents' perspective," Landau, who also produced Titanic, continued.
"We have teenagers who are struggling to find their own identity – one trying to figure out who their father was. These are real-life issues.
"It's a bi-racial family, it's a family that has been forced to become refugees, if you will, and seek safe haven. These are all relatable themes and each member of the family is a flawed character, nobody is perfect."
Check out the first reactions to The Way of Water right here.
Avatar: The Way of Water is released in cinemas on Friday, December 16. You can watch Avatar right now on Disney+.
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Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment.
In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.
Ali is Hearst UK's deputy social strategy director. He has been covering TV and movies for more than six years, all while wrangling Digital Spy's social media and video channels - for which he received a PPA 30 Under 30 award. He specializes in writing about anime, LGBTQ+ representation, science fiction, and comic book adaptations. Recently he's begun collecting Star Wars interviews like Infinity Stones and has spoken with The Mandalorian's Pedro Pascal, Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy and the creative team behind The Bad Batch. Dave Filoni, you're next.
With over a decade's experience in the media space, Ben started out as a freelance writer for publications such as Trusted Reviews, the Daily Star and Gamesradar among others, before eventually turning his skills towards the world of video.
Ben worked at Digital Spy between 2019 and 2024 as Video Editor, and later the site's Video Lead.
Prior to his time with DS, Ben worked with the likes of ITN Productions, Yahoo! UK, AOL, Red Bull and The V&A Dundee on a range of productions from smaller social edits to global live streams and longer form documentaries for London Fashion Week.
A survival-horror aficionado who has shared a stage with Chas & Dave, helped Charles Dance navigate the DVDs in HMV and visited Murray Walker's home (for a shoot, he didn't just turn up), Ben is not easily starstruck, and always happy to film with names big or small.
