James Cameron's 1st AVATAR was a massive movie event in 2009. The movie arrived just as the 3D resurgence was beginning, and its groundbreaking approach to motion capture, digital imagery, and 3D offered audiences a unique cinematic experience. AVATAR became the highest-grossing movie ever released — briefly surpassed by AVENGERS: ENDGAME before a Chinese re-release allowed Cameron's movie to reclaim the top spot.
Despite a few such theatrical encores, many audiences have not had a chance to see AVATAR on the big screen since its original run. That will change in September when Disney launches an original AVATAR re-release, complete with remastered and updated sound and picture.
The original AVATAR will be back on the big screen on September 23. That's just about three months before the release of the sequel, AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER. Paralleling the real-world time gap between the two movies, THE WAY OF WATER is set more than a decade after the events of the first film.
The sequel, according to the studios, "begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure."
Since it's been more than a decade since the original movie, this re-release will be a good chance to look back at how Sully got to the planet Pandora, and how he traded his humanity for a different existence.
When the movie was recently back in theatres in China, James Cameron spoke about AVATAR's continued relevance.
“We’ve got climate change, we’ve got deforestation, our relationship with nature is more at risk than it’s ever been, and Avatar is about those things, but it also is a timeless film. Some people criticize the stories for being too simple. It wasn’t that simple — it was universal. It was something that everybody everywhere could understand and emotionally related to.”
Of course, the key to AVATAR's success was spectacle, and we know that it can still deliver on that front. The impact might be even more significant now, since Cameron and his team have done additional work on the movie. We're eager to see what the remastered picture and sound will offer. Pandora awaits!
AVATAR will be back on the big screen.
All images courtesy of 20th Century Studios and Disney.