James Cameron’s latest addition to the Avatar series, Avatar: The Way Of Water, truly leaves its fans in awe of its beautiful visuals and absorbing storyline. The Way Of Water was long in the making, and it finally premiered last year in December 2022. With a surprising budget of $350-$460 million, The Way Of Water can undeniably be considered a movie shifting towards the expensive side.
Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, and Stephen Lang are some protagonists of The Way Of Water. When Avatar 2019 came out, James Cameron planned for a few more sequels, but unfortunately, the director had no choice but to wait until the available technology was advanced enough to make his true vision come to life. Way Of Water turned out to be well worth the wait as it’s not only stunning through its visual scenes but also manages to keep the viewers entranced by its intense storyline.
The plot of Avatar: The Way Of Water takes place after 16 years of the events of the first movie. Jake Sully was now the chief of the clan and lived in the place with his mate Neytiri and children Neteyam, Lo’ak, Tuk, Kiri, and Spider. Things are shown to be heading in a grim direction for Na’vi once again as the RDA was fully set on capturing and making Pandora their own, as their old home, Planet Earth, was on the brink of extinction. Jake, along with this new generation of Na’vi, has to fight off RDA while making sure that the peace in Pandora is undisturbed.
Avatar The Way Of Water: Filming Locations
Once new technology was successfully developed, the filming of Avatar 2 resumed in the years following the release of the first part. Since most of the scenes had to inevitably be shot underwater, the cast members of The Way Of Water had to be trained in diving and breathing underwater. Kate Winslet, who plays the role of Ronal, ended up breaking the record for most minutes underwater in a single breath by filming a scene for almost seven straight minutes.
Both Way of Water and its sequel were shot together in regions such as Manhattan Beach and Wellington. James had originally planned to film parts of Avatar’s sequel in New Zealand, but since COVID led to the shutdown of various places, they filmed most of the movie in California. Filming for The Way Of Water began on August 15th, 2017, and continued up until the later months of 2020.
Manhattan Beach, California, USA:
Manhattan Beach stands as the prime filming location for this film and is where the crew first started filming its scenes. To make scenes in the water much more realistic, they resorted to Performance Capture techniques to mimic real movements. After tests in a small tank in January 2018 turned out to be successful, the crew moved to the beach and implemented the technology on a bigger scale. The cast of The Way Of Life couldn’t wear scuba equipment as the bubbles could interfere with this new technology.
Asides from being the main filming sport for Avatar 2, Manhattan Beach has also been an important location in TV shows and movies like The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, Her, The Avengers, Jane The Virgin, and The Haunting. This beach also seems to be in almost every Marvel movie, such as Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man.
Stone Street Studios, Wellington, New Zealand:
While most of the Virtual production was happening in California, half of the crew of Avatar: The Way Of Water was situated in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Visual effects were all applied and polished in studios located in NZ, such as Stone Street Studios. James Cameron had already revealed that New Zealand would be his next filming spot for Avatar 2 and 3 back in 2009. After filming all necessary visuals in Manhattan, the crew moved to Wellington in 2020 after the pandemic had subsided. They were still quarantined and continued filming later up until September 2020.
These were the known filming spots for one of the highest-grossing films, Avatar: The Way Of Water, and at present, the film is available to watch at Disney+.
Also Read: 15 Avatar 2 Interesting Facts That Are Crazy For The Current Cinema
