'Avatar: The Way Of Water' Streaming Release Date Has Been Set
It arrives after six months of accruing the third-highest-grossing box office of all time
It’s the end of an era, and what a way to go out. Avatar: The Way Of Water is finally headed to streaming after six months of a historic box office run.
Avatar: The Way of Water will premiere on Disney+ and Max (the service formerly with the HBO name attached) on June 7. As the final film in 2022 released theatrically from 20th Century Studios, formerly 20th Century Fox, it is the last in the pay-1 window deal between the studio and the Warner Bros entity which is currently Warner Bros. Discovery that predates Disney’s purchase of 20th Century. In 2021, the deal was amended for sharing between HBO Max and Disney+ or Hulu and ran through 2022’s releases. For example, Ron’s Gone Wrong and Free Guy ended up going to Disney+ and HBO Max, while The Bob’s Burgers Movie and Amsterdam went to Hulu and HBO Max. It’s like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Mary Poppins Returns in Disney’s last deals with Starz and Netflix before Disney+ existed and Spider-Man: No Way Home for Sony’s deal with Starz.
Avatar: The Way of Water, directed by James Cameron, arrived in theaters on December 16, and went on to gross over $2.3 billion worldwide. That made it not only the highest-grossing movie of 2022, but also the third highest-grossing movie ever, with only Avengers: Endgame and 2009's first Avatar film. With the success of 1997’s Titanic, Cameron has directed three of the top five highest-grossing movies of all time.
On the moon of Pandora, Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, and Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldaña, are now raising a family. Their happiness is interrupted when the Earth military returns to retry conquest, led by Miles Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang who has been resurrected as a recombinant and assigned to assassinate the Na'vi resistance leader. So they must leave their homes to venture into unknown regions of the moon and meet the Metkayina reef people. The cast also includes Sigourney Weaver, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi and Kate Winslet.