The first Avatar movie is the highest grossing movie of all time. That is a massive accomplishment. Given this, one would think a sequel would come out as soon as possible. However, the long awaited sequel is coming out two days short of being 13 years after the first one.

“I would say I’m very surprised that a sequel for this movie is coming out so late,” Nick Viadelalene said. “But a lot of movies nowadays are banking on nostalgia for you to watch it. The new  Top Gun movies showed that sequels to big movies can come out whenever and still be successful.”

Viadelalene is a movie theater employee prepping for a big day at the theater day of release. At least he hopes it will be a big day at the theater day of release. It might not be, however, as overall excitement and hype for this movie is pretty indecisive.

“The ads I have seen for the second one seem the same as the first,” Amy Bartels said. ”Fancy cartoons and a limited story. I don’t have any hype for this movie.”

Someone who did not like the first Avatar movie and does not have hope for the second to be better. However, on the other side there is Spencer Guthrie.

“I’m very excited for the release,” Guthrie said. “I loved the first one as a big step in visuals for movies and I can only imagine how good this one will be.”

Guthrie and Bartels are a good microcosm to show how indecisive this movie is to many so far. Even with this movie seemingly splitting people into groups of varying excitement, the theaters are still preparing for a big day of primarily Avatar fans, even if they do have other movies.

“I think around the release it will be mainly Avatar,” Viadelalene said. “A combination of good marketing, nostalgia, amazing visuals, a mix of audiences young and old, and hope for a good story would make the movie the only one people are remotely excited about for a while.”

He’s mentioning that Avatar will be the biggest movie for a while so they’re preparing for primarily an Avatar ready crowd. This preparation includes many things the theater is doing.

“We have a lot of posters and standees,” Viadelalene said. “It’s hard to walk anywhere without being reminded of the movie. We know Avatar is our biggest draw so we’re hoping the posters get more people to watch it.”

Overall the hype for this movie is fairly indecisive even with how successful the first one was. However, the theaters are preparing for a movie that’s just as big as the first. The first one became a generation defining movie just off how big in scope it was. If the sequel can live up to a movie that made $2.7 billion worldwide in theaters. Audiences will most definitely have a third movie coming soon.

Apparently, the movie is banking heavily on how successful and popular the first movie is as the sequel will have to make $2 billion globally in the theaters to simply break even. 

“It surprises me how much money the creators of the sequel are putting into this movie,” Guthrie said.” However, I’m happy at the same time because it probably means a higher quality movie for the audience. It also makes me more nervous if the movie disappoints and under performs. I want to see this franchise’s story through.”