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'Avatar 2' gets world premiere in London

Agence France Presse

LONDON, United Kingdom - One of the most delayed sequels in blockbuster history finally hit the big screen on Tuesday as &quot;Avatar: The Way of Water&quot; got its much-anticipated world premiere in London. The 13-year wait for a follow-up to &quot;Avatar&quot;, the biggest-grossing film of all time, cannot come too soon for cinemas around the world still struggling from the impact of the Covid pandemic.The public will get to see James Cameron&#x27;s three-hour opus next week, with the director hoping it will justify his dream of establishing a franchise on a par with &quot;Star Wars&quot; and the &quot;Marvel&quot; juggernaut. The legendary filmmaker admitted to having some nerves ahead of the premiere.&quot;I&#x27;ve always been nervous every time before we put a movie out into the marketplace and this is a particularly fraught time because, after the pandemic, the market has contracted somewhat,&quot; he told the BBC from the red carpet.But Cameron added he was confident that the sequel to his 2009 blockbuster delivers. &quot;The film is a good ride. It&#x27;s a good experience. It&#x27;s powerful. It&#x27;s emotional. People are crying, they&#x27;re weeping their eyes out coming out of the theatre in a good way.&quot;Having been re-released around the world in recent months, the first &quot;Avatar&quot; is now just shy of $3 billion in worldwide revenue. But Cameron&#x27;s initial hopes of having a sequel out by 2014 saw repeated delays as his technical ambitions grew.<div>&#x27;BIG FAN&#x27;</div>The second film continues the mix of sci-fi and eco-politics -- returning to the planet Pandora where the Na&#x27;vi characters struggle to fend off rapacious humans -- as well as the groundbreaking use of 3D and cutting-edge cinematic wizardry that made the original such a box office hit.Stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver return, alongside new additions including Kate Winslet, a quarter-century after her world-beating collaboration with Cameron for &quot;Titanic&quot;. Some fans arrived in central London early to land a precious wristband providing access to the red carpet at the evening screening.Dobrinka Perry had even painted her face blue in honour of the budding franchise&#x27;s Na&#x27;vi characters.&quot;I&#x27;m a big fan,&quot; she told AFP, drawing comparisons with plotlines and her own life, such as environmental campaigning.&quot;I am also a fighter, I fight for the tree of my family, for my Pandora... and especially for what we are going to leave to our kids later.&quot;Nelly Szabo, 23, had also turned out for the premiere with high hopes.&quot;We&#x27;ve been waiting a long time for it,&quot; she said of the sequel. She added that the first one &quot;was amazing so our expectations are very high.&quot;The follow-up remains a huge bet for Cameron and for Disney, who have ploughed hundreds of millions of dollars not only into this film, but a third instalment that has already been shot. That is not the end: Cameron has planned the series through to a fifth entry, with new films due every two years until 2028. Cameron said he was &quot;reasonably confident&quot; they would be released. &quot;We did well with the first film and that allows us to go on... we got to see what happens.&quot;

One of the most delayed sequels in blockbuster history finally hit the big screen on Tuesday as 'Avatar: The Way of Water' got its much-anticipated world premiere in London. 