Avatar 3: James Cameron has a 9-hour cut he wants to finish

James Cameron has a nine-hour cut of Avatar 3 – and he’s committed to finishing it before cutting it down, according to a new report.

Avatar: The Way of Water, the much-anticipated sequel to James Cameron’s highest-grossing movie of all time, is finally in cinemas now. You can check out our review of the movie here.

It’s the first of four planned sequels, with the next three set to be released between 2024 and 2028 – however, the whole endeavour could be wrapped up with Avatar 3 if it doesn’t perform at the box office.

However, that third movie is already a titanic undertaking, because Cameron is rumored to have handed in a nine-hour cut – and he wants to finalize its VFX before chopping it up.

James Cameron has a nine-hour cut of Avatar 3

According to Jeff Sneider, a notable reporter and leaker, Cameron “handed in a cut of Avatar 3 last week… the cut was – no joke – nine hours long.”

“Apparently, he’s insisting on doing the VFX for this cut… and then he’ll cut it down, rather than figuring out what he wants,” he added on The Hot Mic podcast.

Sneider also said Disney’s internal box office goal for Avatar 2 was once $3 billion, which would make it the highest-grossing movie ever made by quite some margin, even beating the original Avatar – which is also on the road to $3 billion with re-releases.

While Avatar 2 has only just been released, initial projections are incredibly promising, and Cameron told Digital Spy he’s “pretty sure” audiences will be returning to Pandora.

“We’ve already done the bulk of the work. We still have to go through the whole finish process with Wētā FX on Avatar 3. But I’m pretty sure that we’re going to be back here in a couple of years,” he said.

Avatar: The Way of Water is in cinemas now. You can read our review here, find out the best way to watch the movie here, and check out the rest of our coverage here.