Avatar re-release features surprise footage of Avatar: The Way of Water

Avatar re-releases in theaters this weekend. The film has been remastered in a 4K dynamic range and seeks to re-ignite the audience interest in 3D movies again with the long-planned sequel Avatar: The Way of Water heading to the silver screen this December. In a surprise treat, it has been revealed that these new screening of James Cameron’s 2009 epic now features exclusive footage from the sequel tagged at the end, Marvel-style.

The studio has made no formal announcement, but with the movie already being shown in several markets in Korea and France, social media reactions have poured in with this surprise unveiling. Interestingly, the footage shown in the film will vary from theater to theater. All the comments about the footage have been positive, and Deadline has reported on some of the reactions from Twitter.

James Cameron had been developing technology for Avatar for years and put off making the movie until he felt it was ready and perfected. The Terminator director is known to push the envelope of special effects in filmmaking, going all the way back to The Abyss with a sequence of a fully CG-rendered water character. Cameron then brought audiences a shape-shifting, liquid metal morphing movie villain in the character of the T-1000 in 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

Avatar had been a passion project for him to get audiences excited to go to the movies again and give them an experience they wouldn’t be able to fully get anywhere else. After the release of Avatar, films would start releasing 3D versions of their blockbusters in tandem with regular 2D versions. As complicated as the 3D shooting process is, not all movies in the aftermath have had the benefit of using Cameron’s special 3D cameras, which shoot specifically for the format but instead would rely on a conversion process in post-production to varying results.

Avatar: The Way of Water opens in theaters on December 16.