49 Fun Facts About Avatar 2: the Way of Water

Which Australian actor plays Jake Sully in Avatar: The Way of Water?

Sam Worthington was living in his car when he auditioned for the first Avatar, having sold most of what he owned to his mates.

What position does Jake Sully hold as The Way of Water opens?

Clan leader more than a decade on, Jake hands the role to a successor and flees to the sea to keep his family and his people out of reach of the soldiers hunting him.

Which reef-dwelling clan gives Jake's family refuge?

The Metkayina shelter the Sullys, and after the final battle their chief declares the family part of the clan when Jake offers to leave.

Unobtanium drove the first Avatar; which anti-aging fluid do hunters take from sea creatures' brains in The Way of Water?

Amrita is said to stop human aging outright, which is why the whaler Scoresby kills the giant animals for a few vials of fluid from their brains.

Kiri, the Sullys' adopted daughter, was born from the inert avatar of which character?

Dr. Grace Augustine died in the first film, yet her comatose avatar later gave birth to Kiri, whose father remains a mystery even to her.

Which actress plays the teenage Kiri?

Sigourney Weaver, in her late sixties, prepared by spending time with real teenagers, and Cameron said she seemed to grow younger and never quite stepped out of Kiri.

Spider, the human boy who grows up alongside the Sully children, is the son of which character?

Colonel Quaritch, reborn, recognises the boy and tries to win him over; Spider later pulls him from the sinking ship but refuses to leave with him.

In what form does Quaritch return in The Way of Water?

A Na'vi avatar with his memories is called a recombinant: the RDA backed up the colonel's mind before his final battle, and the copy learns how he came back from a video briefing.

Payakan, who saves Lo'ak, is what kind of creature?

A Tulkun: Payakan is an outcast among these whale-like giants, yet he repays Lo'ak by hurling himself onto the hunters' ship, the blow that sets off the final battle.

Why was Payakan exiled by the others of his kind?

He attacked the humans who killed his mother, and those who followed him died in the fight; his kind hold that any killing, whatever the cause, makes an outcast.

Which Sully child is killed during the climactic battle?

Neteyam is shot while getting Lo'ak, Tsireya and Spider off the hunters' ship, and his death sends his parents back aboard in a fury to save their daughters.

What medical condition do Norm and Max diagnose Kiri with after her vision at the Spirit Tree?

Epilepsy is the scientists' reading of the seizure Kiri suffers underwater, and they warn she could die if she links with the Spirit Tree again.

Who plays Ronal, the pregnant wife of the reef clan's chief, in The Way of Water?

Kate Winslet reunited with Cameron two decades after Titanic; he said the pair had spent those 20 years looking for another project to share.

Which Sopranos star plays General Frances Ardmore, commander of the RDA's interests?

Edie Falco plays one of the film's live-action human roles, and her general first appears striding about in a robotic exosuit that mirrors her every movement.

Which Flight of the Conchords star plays marine biologist Dr. Ian Garvin?

Jemaine Clement won the part over comedian Marc Maron, who called his own audition ridiculous and said Cameron sent him a box of cigars as consolation.

Who plays Tonowari, the reef clan's chief, in The Way of Water?

Cliff Curtis plays the chief who grants the fleeing Sullys shelter over his wife's doubts; he signed on in 2017 for all four planned sequels.

Which star of the first Avatar confirmed in 2015 that she would sit out the sequel?

Michelle Rodriguez's pilot Trudy Chacón died in the first film, and she said Cameron had not asked her back even though other dead characters were returning.

Which actor returns as the villain Quaritch in The Way of Water?

Stephen Lang says Cameron told him before the first film had even finished shooting that Quaritch had a future, though the colonel dies at the end of it.

What did Cameron do in 2012, in the gap between Avatar films, that no one had done alone before?

Dive to the Mariana Trench floor: he reached the deepest point in the oceans alone in March 2012, and once hoped to film sequel footage down there.

What do the RDA soldiers hunting Jake do to reef villagers who refuse to say where he is hiding?

Burn their homes: when that fails, the soldiers hunt the whale-like animals the reef clans are bonded to near their villages to draw Jake out.

Which action star's breath-holding record for a film shoot did a Way of Water cast member beat during production?

Tom Cruise set the mark for a stunt in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation; one of the sequel's stars outlasted it, holding her breath for more than seven minutes in the tank.

Why couldn't The Way of Water's cast use scuba gear during underwater motion capture?

Air bubbles interfered with the sensors, and water also swallowed the infrared light normally used for motion capture, so the team switched to ultraviolet.

Which VFX house did the bulk of the effects work on The Way of Water?

Weta Digital, now Wētā FX, called it the biggest job it had ever taken on: rendering ran to nearly 3.3 billion thread hours, forcing the work onto rented cloud servers.

Which film series first took 48 frames per second, used in The Way of Water, into wide release?

The Hobbit films reached cinemas at 48 frames per second from 2012; Cameron uses the faster rate for only parts of his sequel, aiming to stop fast action from blurring.

Which film was shot simultaneously with The Way of Water?

By September 2020, 95% of the third film had been shot as well.

What was the title of the complete Avatar sequel script that Cameron spent a year writing and then threw out?

Avatar: The High Ground went in the bin because Cameron felt it lacked what had made the first film connect; the story later resurfaced as a prequel comic.

Which mass shooting did Cameron cite when explaining why he cut ten minutes of gunplay from The Way of Water?

The Christchurch mosque shootings came up as he explained the cut: he said gun violence now turned his stomach and he no longer wanted to fetishize guns as his Terminator films had.

Who composed The Way of Water's score after James Horner, composer of the first Avatar, died in 2015?

Simon Franglen had worked beside Horner on Titanic and the first Avatar, co-producing 'My Heart Will Go On', so he took over the themes after Horner died in a plane crash.

Which artist performed 'Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)', the original song written for The Way of Water?

The Weeknd wrote the song, teased it online, then released it the day before the film opened, with Swedish House Mafia among its producers.

Which Way of Water star sings 'The Songcord', the Na'vi-language song heard in the film?

Zoe Saldaña sings it in Na'vi, because a songcord is how a Na'vi keeps her family's history: a string of beads, each one standing for a memory.

Where did The Way of Water hold its world premiere on December 6, 2022?

Odeon Luxe Leicester Square, London welcomed Cameron and his cast, but he had to miss the Hollywood premiere days later after testing positive for COVID-19.

Which Disney-owned studio released The Way of Water in US cinemas?

20th Century Studios is the old 20th Century Fox, which released the first Avatar; Disney bought it in 2019 and dropped the Fox name the following year.

Which film did The Way of Water overtake as 2022's highest-grossing release?

Top Gun: Maverick led 2022 until The Way of Water passed it in about three weeks, despite an opening weekend that fell short of forecasts.

Which film ended The Way of Water's US run at number one?

Knock at the Cabin opened to about $14 million in February 2023 and pushed the sequel to third; no film had led for seven straight weekends since the first Avatar.

Which country gave The Way of Water its biggest opening weekend outside North America?

China delivered about $57 million, well short of the $100 million hoped for, because a surge of COVID-19 infections kept audiences at home that week.

Which Academy Award did The Way of Water win at the 95th Oscars?

Best Visual Effects was its only win from four nominations; the first Avatar had turned nine nominations into three Oscars.

How do the reef Na'vi talk to one another while swimming underwater in The Way of Water?

Sign language was devised for the film by deaf actor CJ Jones, who also appears on screen as a reef clan interpreter.

What do the reef clan's youngsters mock about the forest-raised Sully children when they arrive?

Their thin tails and arms mark the Sullys as forest Na'vi; the reef people have thick tails built to drive them through water and fin-like ridges on their arms.

Which cloud company did The Way of Water's effects house use to manage its enormous data load?

Amazon Web Services was brought in because the effects work, the biggest the studio had attempted, produced more data than it could manage alone.

By the end of The Way of Water, what has Jake resolved to do about the RDA?

Stand and fight is where he ends up: Jake fled the forest to keep his family safe, but the war followed him to the reef, so he decides running is no protection.

Which country's Screen Production Grant had paid the Avatar sequels a nine-figure sum in subsidies by mid-2022?

New Zealand's rebate drew fire from the opposition ACT party, which wanted film subsidies scrapped, while the government said they bought jobs and investment.

Which carmaker unveiled a Vision AVTR concept car inspired by Avatar at CES 2020?

Mercedes-Benz showed the car nearly three years before the sequel opened, then led its promotional partners and parked the concept at the Hollywood premiere.

Which actor, the first Avatar's corporate boss Parker Selfridge, returns for a brief cameo in The Way of Water?

Giovanni Ribisi appears only in a recorded video briefing, though producer Jon Landau promised him a far bigger part in the third film.

Who is Jake Sully's wife and the mother of his children in The Way of Water?

Neytiri taught Jake the ways of the forest in the first film; now she must start from scratch in the sea, learning the reef people's skills alongside her own children.

Which actress plays Tsireya, the reef chief's daughter who befriends Lo'ak in The Way of Water?

Bailey Bass was one of seven young actors announced in 2017, who spent six months learning to act underwater before their scenes were shot.

Which film beat The Way of Water to Best Picture at the 95th Academy Awards?

Everything Everywhere All at Once won seven Oscars that night; the sequel, the biggest box-office hit among the nominees, went home with one.

Which cinematographer, a Cameron veteran of True Lies and Titanic, shot the Avatar sequels?

Russell Carpenter won an Oscar for Titanic's photography, then returned to Cameron's side twenty years later when the Avatar sequels began shooting.

On which two streaming services was The Way of Water released on June 7, 2023?

Disney+ and Max are rival services, yet both carried the film from day one under an unusual deal sharing half of the studio's 2022 titles.

Cameron called The Way of Water the worst what in movie history?

Business case: he told GQ it had to become the third or fourth highest-grossing film ever just to break even, and three weeks into its run said it would easily clear that.