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Brace yourselves: A 9-hour cut of ‘Avatar 3’ could hit Disney+ as limited series

Brace yourselves: A 9-hour cut of ‘Avatar 3’ could hit Disney+ as limited series

Haven’t we suffered enough?

Apparently not, since there are rumours circulating that James Cameron wants to release a 9-hour-long director's cut of Avatar 3 on Disney+ after the theatrical release.

Yep, you read that correctly – 9 butt-bruising hours.

You really wish that Cameron could take Alfred Hitchcock’s advise when the late filmmaker stated that the length of a film “should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.”

Jeff Sneider first revealed on his podcast, The Hot Mic, that Cameron had a nine-hour cut of Avatar 3 back in December. Now, he has revealed on a new episode of the podcast what Cameron plans to do with it.

“Months ago, I put out a rumour about James Cameron having a nine-hour cut of Avatar 3 that he wanted to finish the visual effects for,” Sneider. “A lot of people were like, ‘Why would the studio pay for that? Why would he insist on doing visual effects if then he’s gonna cut the movie?’ The idea is that Cameron would do all the visual effects for his nine-hour cut of Avatar 3 and then release it on Disney+ as a limited series after the theatrical cut is released.”

Oh, good.

Granted, this news is to be filed under ‘Rumour that should hopefully not materialize – pretty pretty please’, but the snag is that Sneider is a long-time scooper with a solid track record. So, it can’t be completely dismissed. And whether he's making films or delivering awards speeches, Cameron does have a tendency for not thinking about his audience’s bladders. Or patience.

To further put this news into context, the 2009 original was 2 hours and 41 minutes, while last year’s Avatar: The Way of Water ran for 3 hours and 12 minutes. Chances are that the theatrical version of the yet untitled Avatar 3 will be, once again, over the 3-hour mark.

James Cameron has already hinted about what to expect with the third chapter of his impressive-style-over-completely-barren-substance Smurfs-meets Pocahontas-in-spaaaaace saga. The director has confirmed we will be getting a few new tribes added into the story, including the fire Na'vi, and we know that Sam Worthington's Jake Sully will not be narrating, but rather Jake's son Lo'ak, played by Britain Dalton, who will take the voiceover duties.

Avatar 4 and 5 are both scheduled for 2026 and 2028 releases respectively, with the fourth instalment already partially shot.

Avatar 3 is tentatively scheduled to open in theatres on 20 December 2024.