While it didn't make any huge announcements about upcoming Marvel (though Kevin Feige did drop that he and his team are strategizing the next decade of movies and TV series) or Lucasfilm titles, Disney had one very big name to bring to this year's CinemaCon event in Las Vegas. And that name was Avatar. The studio revealed that the first sequel to James Cameron's 2009 epic will be called Avatar: The Way Of Water.
That's fitting for a film we've long been told will feature lots of watery footage using tools and techniques that Cameron's team has been busy working on.
As for the story? Here's the official word: "Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, Avatar: The Way Of Water begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure."
A first teaser trailer for the movie was shown in 3D to attendees, who were bowled over by what they saw, yet again reaffirming that we should never count out James Cameron. The director was not in attendance, too busy working on this and the other three sequels, but he did send a video message... "We set out to push the limits to what cinema can do," he said in his greeting from New Zealand.
Producer Jon Landau was, however, at CinemaCon, keeping the flag flying. "We need to make sure audiences have an experience they can’t get anywhere else, and that needs to be exclusively in theaters,” he said in introducing the teaser trailer, which will be released next week, exclusively in cinemas, ahead of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (which itself screened around 15 minutes of new footage at CinemaCon).
Landau also announced plans to re-release the original Avatar on Sept. 23 in US cinemas, with restored picture and sound – no word yet on whether it'll similarly return to UK screens.
Featuring the returning likes of Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, plus new recruits including Vin Diesel and Kate Winslet, Avatar: The Way Of Water will hit screens on 16 December.
Elsewhere, Disney had the first look at David O. Russell's film, which now know is titled Amsterdam (more on that here), plus six minutes from The Bob's Burgers Movie, some Lightyear footage courtesy of Pixar.