You might not want to get the large soda when you head out to see Avatar: Fire and Ash next month. AMC Theaters posted a runtime for James Cameron’s latest, and it’s, apparently, three hours and 15 minutes. That makes it the longest Avatar film yet, beating 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water by a meager three minutes.
io9 reached out to Disney to confirm or clarify that runtime but had yet to hear back as of publication. If we hear back, we’ll update the post. AMC wouldn’t just randomly put up a runtime, though. It’s got to sell tickets and set schedules, and very regularly, ticket sites are how we learn the length of movies. So we tend to believe it. Especially since Fire and Ash will be the last Avatar film for a while (the fourth film is currently scheduled for 2029), so we expect it to be rather epic.
And while news of a long movie can be seen as either a good thing (more movie, more excitement!) or a bad thing (why is this thing so long?), when it comes to James Cameron, we lean toward the former. Again, The Way of Water was just three minutes shorter and was pretty damned excellent. And while today we generally think of Titanic as this unparalleled masterpiece, at the time, many were shocked by its runtime, which was, coincidentally, also three hours and 15 minutes. That worked out pretty well if we remember. *Checks notes* Yes, Titanic did okay at that length. Almost $2 billion at the box office 20 years ago, which would be closer to $4 billion today. Eleven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Not too shabby.
Cameron has said that he sees Fire and Ash as almost a break in his saga, with the first three films telling one story and the final two telling another. So, we think this movie is going to be even more consequential than the mega-successful first two. There’s lots of story to tell. Plus, there wasn’t a 13-year wait this time. We know audiences turn up for Avatar, no matter how long it is.
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