Very late last year around the time of the release of “Avatar: The Way of Water,” a rather wild rumor cropped up from Jeff Sneider on The Hot Mic podcast indicating filmmaker James Cameron handed in a nine-hour cut of “Avatar 3” to 20th Century Studios.
At the time he indicated Cameron insisted on doing the VFX for this cut so that all nine hours get fully rendered final visual effects before he’ll cut it down to feature length.
It seems crazy, but Sneider is doubling down on it in the latest episode of The Hot Mic saying Cameron has contemplated finishing the visual effects for the entirety of the third film’s content and then releasing it in limited series form:
He says: “The idea is that Cameron would do all the visual effects for his nine-hour cut of Avatar 3 and then release it on Disney+ as a limited series after the theatrical cut is released.”
There is no evidence at present that Cameron will end up doing this for now, even in an era where extended cuts and recuts of films are getting released on streaming. Still, Sneider is a long-time scooper with a solid track record so it can’t be dismissed out of hand.
More recently, actress Zoe Saldana told Entertainment Tonight that additional filming on the third movie is taking place shortly: “Yeah, I mean, we’re gonna go back this summer and finish it up. We’re 70% done there. But, we have time.”
All we really know for now is that “Avatar 3” is tentatively scheduled for a December 20th 2024 release.
