Skip to main content

Avatar: The Way of Water teaser takes us back to Pandora

Just a few weeks ago, the first glimpse at Avatar: The Way of Water was the talk of CinemaCon. Director James Cameron spent years working on the new sequel to Avatar, and it was always going to be an uphill battle to follow the most successful movie of all time. But if the early visuals are any indication, Cameron may have successfully done it. The first teaser trailer made its public debut in theaters with last Friday’s debut of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But now, the trailer is online for everyone to see.

If you’re looking for story details and spoilers, you won’t find any here. This teaser trailer is designed to shock and awe cinema lovers with things both new and familiar. Jake Sully and his wife, Neytiri, are back in a story set 10 years after the original film. We only get a glimpse of their children here as the family explores the oceans of Pandora and the magnificent creatures that live there.

Avatar: The Way of Water | Official Teaser Trailer

The official description for the sequel is frustratingly vague. But it does hint that some dark times are ahead for the family.

“Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, Avatar: The Way of Water begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure.”

A striking visual from Avatar: The Way of Water.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña are reprising their respective roles as Jake Sully and Neytiri. The oldest son of the family is named Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), while his younger Na’vi siblings are Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuktirey (Trinity Bliss). Jake and Neytiri have also adopted a human child, Javier “Spider” Socorro (Jack Champion).

The sequel’s expanded cast includes Giovanni Ribisi, CCH Pounder, Cliff Curtis, Kate Winslet, Edie Falco, Michelle Yeoh, Jemaine Clement, and Vin Diesel. Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang will also return as Dr. Grace Augustine and Colonel Miles Quaritch, respectively. Both characters died in the first film, so the way they come back remains to be seen.

Avatar: The Way of Water will come crashing down into theaters on December 16.

Editors' Recommendations

Blair Marnell
Blair Marnell has been an entertainment journalist for over 15 years. His bylines have appeared in Wizard Magazine, Geek…
Avatar: The Way of Water’s ending explained
Two Na'vi characters stand in the water in a scene from Avatar: The Way of Water.

After a long 13-year wait, the sequel to James Cameron's Avatar has finally premiered in theaters, and it was worth the wait. Taking place more than a decade after the original film, Jake Sully continues to battle the RDA on Pandora as a member of the alien Na'vi. He and his mate, Neytir,i have started their family -- they have two sons, Neteyam and Lo'ak; a daughter, Tuk; an adoptive daughter, Kiri; and an adoptive human son, "Spider" (so yeah, they've been very busy parents).

While the many years of waiting may have seen audiences' enthusiasm for the sequel dwindle, this new film is sure to bring them all back to Pandora with groundbreaking visuals, more worldbuilding, and a heartfelt story that sets up an epic future for the franchise. There's so much packed into the film's whopping 192-minute runtime, and it only lays the foundation for a much bigger story by the time it all ends.
Return to Pandora

Read more
Avatar: The Way of Water trailer highlights Pandora in all its beauty
Two Na'vi characters stand in the water in a scene from Avatar: The Way of Water.

Ahead of the film's release date next month, 20th Century Studios released the official trailer for the highly anticipated Avatar: The Way of Water. The trailer features breathtaking visuals of Pandora, including stunning ocean footage, and teases an impending conflict for the Na'vi.

The sequel to 2009's Avatar is set more than 10 years after the events in the first film. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is now fully a member of the Na'vi, and with his partner, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), had four children together. However, trouble is on the horizon as outside forces attempt to destroy Pandora once again. It's a battle for survival as Jake tries to save his family and his new world from destruction.

Read more
James Cameron’s sci-fi epic Avatar returns to theaters, but has its magic faded?
Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana fall in love on Pandora.

There were plenty of reasons to wonder, in the autumn of 2009, if James Cameron had finally flown too close to the sun, burning a big budget on a boondoggle. Nearly a dozen years after emerging from a troubled production with the biggest movie of all time, the disaster-weepie phenomenon Titanic, the blockbuster maestro had once more secured enormous investment in pursuit of a bank-busting special-effects spectacle to rule them all. Except this time, the movie in question looked, from a distance, like the height of overreaching silliness: A sci-fi fantasy about a species of lithe, ocean-blue, vaguely feline aliens, prancing through a tropical paradise. The first trailer prompted chortles. Cameron, however, would have the last laugh.

Avatar, like Titanic before it, did more than silence the skeptics. It vindicated all the grand, hubristic ambition of its creator, at least from a commercial standpoint. Somehow, Cameron had done it again, and unbelievably surpassed the box-office success of his last conquest of the record books. Avatar, a hodgepodge of science fiction tropes in a cutting-edge package, was the big-screen event that everyone had to attend. Globally speaking, it quickly became the biggest movie of all time — a title it lost a decade later to Avengers: Endgame, then won again thanks to a rerelease in Chinaduring the pandemic. Even adjusted for inflation, the movie sits toward the top of the all-time charts.

Read more