Avatar: The Way of Water was officially released today (December 16) and the second film in this potentially epic five-film franchise has hit the ground running so far in its short existence. You might have had to wait over a decade for the sequel, but James Cameron has already confirmed that Avatar 3 was filmed in conjunction with the second, and it could be even bigger as well.

Any news on Avatar 3 has been kept, understandably, under wraps, until now that is because an insider has revealed that Cameron has handed in his first cut of the film and it’s at a very lofty nine hours. Now, just to get our heads around that, that is the length of all three Lord of the Rings films (the standard ones of course) back-to-back.

According to Jeff Sneider, while talking on The Hot Mic podcast, “[James] Cameron handed in a cut of Avatar 3 last week”, before revealing that the run time of that cut is “nine hours” long. These films are long though, the first Avatar film was 2 hours and 42 minutes, while The Way of Water’s run time is even longer at 3 hours and 12 minutes. But nine hours though, that’s a mindboggling time to be sat in one seat, unless you’re on a long-haul flight that is.

However, it would be massively surprised if this was the end runtime, in fact, it probably won’t be anywhere close to nine hours. Cameron has stated that he wants to complete the film in its entirety with all the visual effects work before he decides to take which bits out and what to keep. It does mean that whatever version of the film ends up being released, there will be a pretty epic director’s cut of the film floating around somewhere.

The length might also depend on how well Avatar: The Way of Water does at the box office too, with Cameron already deciding on a plan to end the franchise with a third film if the second doesn’t hit targets. Cameron explained, “The market could be telling us we’re done in three months, or we might be semi-done, meaning: ‘Okay, let’s complete the story within movie three, and not go on endlessly,’ if it’s just not profitable.”

Cameron being Cameron though, that would be a tough decision to swallow, to have it end after three films, but thankfully the figures are looking impressive for the second film, with it already bringing in around $16 million at the foreign box office.

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