‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ Sets Digital Release

Sophia Scorziello editor In this exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” from its upcoming digital release, the film’s cast and crew reveal the multiple innovative methods they deployed to shoot the film, as the production team quite literally learned how to work vis-à-vis the way of water. Going from land to water was a big adjustment for the cast. Stars Zoe Saldaña, Sam Worthington and Kate Winslet discuss having to learn to regulate their bodies and breathing within this unfamiliar layer of the set so they could properly to capture the essence of Cameron’s vision.  “There’s not just the physical challenge of holding your breath,” says Winslet, who plays Ronal in the film. “There’s then the added challenge of acting out a scene underwater where everything is very different. You’re having to imagine coral reefs; you’re having to picture other Na’vi swimming around you. Then you have the challenge of your movements are very, very different underwater — finding that serenity and that calm.” 

Jordan Peele’s follow-up to “Nope” is on the way.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Jordan Peele’s next film is coming to the big screen in time for Christmas… of 2024. Universal Pictures, which released the filmmaker’s prior features “Get Out,” “Us” and “Nope,” added an “Untitled Fourth Film Directed by Jordan Peele” to its release calendar. It’s set to open in theaters nationwide on Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. On its current date, Peele’s upcoming project will premiere one week after James Cameron’s “Avatar 3” and “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” which will both debut on Dec. 20, 2024. Universal’s big-screen adaptation of the “Wicked” musical was previously slated to land on the same weekend, but the studio recently pushed up its release date to Thanksgiving.

Avatar 3 could be made into a limited Disney+ series, according to a Hollywood insider.Jeff Sneider first revealed on his podcast, The Hot Mic, that James Cameron had a nine-hour cut of Avatar 3 back in December. Now, he has revealed on a new episode of the podcast what Cameron plans to do with it.“Months ago, I put out a rumour about James Cameron having a nine-hour cut of Avatar 3 that he wanted to finish the visual effects for,” Sneider.

Tom Cruise was “a little sensitive” for missing the 2023 Oscars after Top Gun: Maverick was snubbed.Cruise, whose new film received six nominations, was not in attendance at the Los Angeles ceremony. According to Entertainment Tonight, this was because the actor is shooting Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part II on location in the UK.Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Letterman said that the supposed production issues were “nonsense,” and that he should have attended to celebrate “his big jet pack Maverick show”.Kimmel then responded: “Yeah. It seems like he should’ve been there, but he was not there.

EXCLUSIVE: The Sands: International Film Festival of St Andrews, held in northern Scotland, has set the lineup for its second edition, running April 14 – 16.

The team behind Avatar: The Way of Water‘s long-expected Oscar win for Visual Effects learned first-hand how committed Academy officials and show producers are to keeping things moving.

Missing the moment. James Cameron skipped the 2023 Oscars on Sunday, March 12, despite his film Avatar: The Way of Water being up for Best Picture.

Sony announced on Friday that they will release the starry Craig Gillespie film Dumb Money on the GameStop short squeeze of 2021 on October 20.

The newest entry in the “Avatar” franchise will hit digital retailers soon.

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water will be available from all major digital retailers including Prime Video, Apple TV, Vudu and Movies Anywhere on March 28.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” broke box office records when it was released this past Christmas, and after months at the theater, the sequel is finally hitting home video. The movie will be available from all major digital retailers (including Prime Video, Apple TV, Vudu and Movies Anywhere) beginning on March 28.Unlike other blockbusters, the movie will premiere on digital retailers before streaming or physical media (my kingdom for a 4K Blu-ray).

Fandom’s “Oscars According to Fans” survey reports that “Avatar: The Way of Water” takes the Oscar for Best Picture over “Top Gun: Maverick” if it were up to fans.James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel was the favorite of 15 states — such as Washington, Oklahoma, Illinois, New York and Alabama — while Tom Cruise’s equally long-awaited sequel took second place as the top film in 13 states including California, Oregon, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, North Carolina and Maine among others.“Elvis” came in third place for fan votes to win Best Picture. Austin Butler’s portrayal of Elvis was the fan favorite of 9 states including Arizona, Mew Mexico, Minnesota and more, with 36% of voters picking him to win the Oscar for the Best Actor.

J. Kim Murphy Emma Heming Willis, wife to actor Bruce Willis, has made a statement asking paparazzi to “keep your space” when following the 67-year-old actor, who was recently diagnosed with dementia. Heming Willis posted a video on Instagram, recounting a recent incident in which photographers attempted to speak to her husband while he made a rare public appearance to meet with a group of friends for coffee in Santa Monica. “If you are someone who is looking after someone with dementia, you know how difficult and stressful it can be to get someone out into the world and to navigate them safely, even just to get a cup of coffee,” she said. “It’s clear that there’s still a lot of education that needs to be put worth. So this one is going out to the photographers and video people that are trying to get those exclusives of my husband out and about. Just keep your space.”

Jeremy Fassler Film editor David Brenner, who died in the middle of work on the Oscar-nominated “Avatar: The Way of Water,” never shied away from a challenge. Ahead of the American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards, directors Zack Snyder and James Cameron remembered Brenner and his celebrated career. Throughout a career spanning more than four decades, Brenner worked alongside some of the most technically demanding directors in Hollywood, from Oliver Stone to Cameron. But whether he was editing an alien invasion in “Independence Day” or a Vietnam veteran leading an antiwar protest in “Born on the Fourth of July” (for which he won an Academy Award), he always found the humanity of his subjects.

Naman Ramachandran A film of Coldplay’s sold-out 10-night concert run at Buenos Aires’ River Plate stadium in 2022 will get a worldwide release in April from Trafalgar Releasing. The concert was part of the band’s “Music Of The Spheres” world tour, which sold more than six million tickets. The film, “Coldplay – Music Of The Spheres: Live At River Plate,” is the director’s cut of the Oct. 28, 2022 worldwide live broadcast of the show across 81 countries. It will feature remixed/remastered sound and visuals captured using 30 cameras, racing drones and 360° filming techniques, by BAFTA-winning and Grammy-nominated director Paul Dugdale.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields,” a documentary about Brooke Shields and the sexual objectification she endured as a child actor, will release on Hulu on April 3. In the two-part documentary, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, the actor and model opens up for the first time about her earliest experiences in Hollywood. The film tracks her rise as a child advertising model to her sexualization in movies, starting at age 12, in “Pretty Baby” (1978), and then at 15, in “The Blue Lagoon” (1980). “I spent my life owing people things and doing whatever they wanted,” Shields says in a new teaser dropped Wednesday morning. “I finally asked myself, ‘What will I be if I don’t allow that anymore?'”

Daron James Along with its record setting box office numbers and four Oscar nominations, “Avatar: The Way of Water” brings a “Metkayina” wave of impressive next-gen technology that will undeniably set new industry standards in motion capture, animation and underwater photography.  The original facial motion capture rig that also impressively immersed Andy Serkis as Gollum and Caesar, received an overhaul. Not only physically but also in the way the software replicates a performance.  “We looked at how the muscles in the face, eyes and lips are all related and created a neural network that maps all the connections between them,” says senior VFX supervisor Joe Letteri. “This gave us this sympathetic motion in the actor’s face which allowed us to translate the performance to the character and make each frame more believable.” 

Tim Gray Senior Vice President “Avatar: The Way of Water” is a sequel, but the VFX team had a mandate far beyond supplying “more of the same.” The follow-up to the 2009 original “Avatar” had many new demands — and these jaw-dropping innovations have helped make the film one of the top box-office films of all time. Joe Letteri, heading up his team at Weta FX, tells Variety, “We were working on this film since the last one finished, identifying what we could do better. Then there was a big burst of research-and-development” about six years ago, when writer-director James Cameron delivered the scripts for this and three more sequels; that’s when they realized the full scope of the film, which takes place in water about 60% of the time.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Alexander Payne’s comedy “The Holdovers” is landing in theaters in time for Thanksgiving. Focus Features will begin rolling out the film on Nov. 10 in select markets before expanding nationwide on Wednesday, Nov. 22, ahead of Turkey Day. It’ll play in theaters alongside Disney’s animated adventure “Wish,” which debuts on the same day, as well as “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” and Universal’s “Trolls 3,” which open the week prior. “The Holdovers” reunites Payne with Paul Giamatti for the first time since their 2004 Oscar-winning film “Sideways.” In the upcoming movie, Giamatti plays a curmudgeonly instructor at an elite New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the students with nowhere to go. He eventually forms an unlikely bond with a damaged, brainy troublemaker (played by newcomer Dominic Sessa) and the head cook (portrayed by Da’Vine Joy Randolph).