There’s a lot under the surface of the new Avatar: The Way of Water movie. The film is the sequel to the highest-grossing movie, Avatar, and is set more than a decade after the first film’s events. The Avatar live on the moon of Pandora which humans have returned to in the new movie. Sully and his family are a part of the jungle tribe called the Na’vi but when they hear of the humans return they venture to the Metkina water tribe to hide. The film tells the story of the Sully family as they explore the underwater regions of Pandora and navigate the ongoing conflict between humans and the native people.
Through the movie’s story the director and producer, James Cameron, hopes to convey his message of environmentalism and the consequences of human actions on the natural world. Cameron states that “the eco-conscious message woven into Avatar will inspire people to apply Pandora’s principles to life on Earth, protect our planet, and spark environmental, conservational, and climate change conversations on activism.”
He wouldn’t have been able to encapsulate Avatar’s magic without all the work that went into production. With a budget of at least $350 million, the Avatar sequel is among the most expensive movies ever produced. To break even, a 2 billion dollar profit is necessary, which would make this sequel one of the highest-grossing films of all time. However, that wasn’t an issue for The Way of Water, which reached $2.02 billion in profits within its sixth weekend of release. The movie became the sixth film in history, and the first since the pandemic, to reach the milestone of $2 billion in profits.
The film’s great success was due to all the production work that went into making the film look realistic. With the use of highly advanced motion capture technology, emotions could be animated making the Avatar look real. The utilization of the technology made it so the animated characters’ actions and feelings followed the actors’ movements in real life. Actors wore markers on their bodies and facial head rigs so expressions, emotions, and movements could be translated onto the digital screen.
However, this wasn’t the only thing that went into making the scenes look realistic. All of the water sequences in the new movie were filmed in actual bodies of water instead of animated water. Two massive tanks were engineered at Manhattan Beach Studios: one was used for training and intimate character moments, while the other larger tank was used for larger action sequences. At 120 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 30 feet deep, the second tank had a 250,000-gallon capacity. The tank possessed wave and current machines designed to enhance action-filled scenes. To capture the performances within these tanks, the directors used two separate immersive volumes that acted as giant green screens. One of the screens was used to record underwater action scenes, and the other was placed above the tank for surface interactions. For other fully submerged underwater scenes, there was a deep-sea cameraman with a custom-made 180-pound rig. The movements of the actors seemed more natural with real underwater filming; It enhanced the character’s interactions with the environment and one another, omitting the stiffness of dry-land filming.
These elaborate underwater scenes meant rigorous training for the cast. Kirk Krack, a free-diving instructor, was brought in to teach the cast and crew tactics for long-period breath-holding and efficient swimming. The cast also had to learn to free dive in order to act as the swimming Avatar. By the end of filming, the cast and crew had logged over 200,000 free dive hours combined, leading Kate Winslet to break Tom Cruises’ breath-holding record with a time of 7 minutes and 14 seconds.
Overall, with the large amount of work put into making the movie look realistic, they were really able to encapsulate the magic of the film.