Avatar: The Way of Water's rumored $460 million price tag sure makes a lot of sense following the film only has two scenes in its 192-minute runtime that don't have any VFX touch-ups whatsoever.
Metro patrolled BAFTA's (British Academy Film Awards) red carpet and snagged an interview with the key figures of the film's VFX team (Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, and Eric Saindon), where they spilled the beans.
"There’s one of Spider’s [Jack Champion] eyeball and there’s one of the bottom of the ocean and just some ripples in the bottom of the water," revealed Snider. Sandon went on to add, "There’s lots of live action, lots of characters with CG but every other scene, VFX shots were touched."
This news is likely to upset a few stomachs among the crowd that feels overuse of VFX is ruining cinema, however, the general audience certainly doesn't seem to mind as Avatar: The Way of Water currently sits at #3 on the all-time worldwide box office gross list behind Avengers: Endgame and the first Avatar film.
The VFX team certainly put in the work and were rewarded for their efforts as the film earned several awards including Best Special Visual Effects at the BAFTAs, Best Visual Effects at The Critic's Choice Awards, and several wins at this year's Visual Effects Society Awards. The film also figures to be a shoo-in to win the Best Visual Effects award at this year's Academy Awards, taking place on March 12.
The next installment in the Avatar franchise should follow much more quickly than the 13 years between the first and second films as the third installment was filmed simultaneously with The Way of Water.
In addition to the third film, there are plans in place for Avatar 4 and 5 as well, however, top execs at Disney and Fox previously stated that they were waiting to see how The Way of Water performed at the box office before officially giving the green light. Given the results, expect news on the fourth and fifth films to be officially announced sooner rather than later.