'Avatar 3' to be slightly longer than previous film, says James Cameron

Los Angeles: Filmmaker James Cameron says the duration of his upcoming movie Avatar: Fire and Ash, will be more than the previous installment which exceeded 3 hours.

Cameron, who directed Avatar in 2009 and Avatar: The Way of Water in 2022, said he wanted to follow up his first installment with three more sequels but when the discussion began, there was so much more material.

"In a nutshell, we had too many great ideas packed into act one of movie 2. The film was moving like a bullet train, and we weren’t drilling down enough on character. So I said, ‘Guys, we’ve got to split it.' Movie 3 will actually be a little bit longer than movie 2,’” he told the Empire magazine.

Avatar: Fire and Ash will feature Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana, who will reprise their roles of Jake Sully and Neytiri, respectively. The film is slated to hit the big screen on December 19.

Amanda Silver, who co-wrote the second movie alongside Cameron and Rick Jaffa also shared her thoughts on the reason the first two movies are so different.

"These movies are a lot more than just propulsive plot and gorgeous spectacle. I mean, these are real characters.

"They are amalgams of us, our childhoods, our role as parents, the mistakes we made, and probably to some extent continue to make as parents," he said about the characters in movie.

The first Avatar film was a huge success at the box office and collected over $2.9 billion worldwide. The second installment got over $2.3 billion at the worldwide box office.