Released in 2009, director James Cameron’s film Avatar became the first movie to officially gross more than $2 billion. Then it took him thirteen years to get a sequel into theatres, so it wasn’t clear if the follow-up was going to be able to replicate that success. But then, sure enough, Avatar: The Way of Water also grossed more than $2 billion, paving the way for not only Avatar 3, or Avatar: Fire and Ash, (which is scheduled to reach theatres on December 19, 2025) but also Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 – which will be released on December 21, 2029 and December 19, 2031, respectively. The first Avatar was quite long, with a running time of 2 hours and 42 minutes, but Avatar: The Way of Water surpassed it, going on for 3 hours and 12 minutes. Now, Cameron has confirmed that Avatar: Fire and Ash will be even longer.

Speaking with Empire, Cameron said, “In a nutshell, we had too many...