Disney may have made billions with last year’s mega-blockbuster Avatar: The Way of Water, but for now it’s going to share the streaming success. The James Cameron-directed sequel is coming to streaming on June 7 and though the film was distributed by Disney, Disney+ won’t be the only place to see it. You can see it there as well as Max, aka HBO Max.
This means that even more customers who have either not seen the continuing tales of Jake Sully, Neytiri, and the world of Pandora yet—or just want to see them again—will have exactly that chance. There’s no word on how long The Way of Water will stay on Max, but we’d imagine its arrival there has something to do with deals signed before Disney purchased Fox, the studio that made the original Avatar, and greenlit its sequels.
One difference in the releases though is Disney+ does mention that its version will have “bonus content featuring filmmakers, cast, and crew,” which gives it a bit of a leg up. Again, we’d imagine these are just some of the materials currently available on the digital release, but that’s better than nothing. (Also, no word yet on a Blu-ray or 4K release, but that’s surely coming soon.)
In Avatar: The Way of Water, we catch up with the stars of the 2009 hit about a decade later. Jake (Sam Worthington) is now a fully formed member of the Na’vi people, having married Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and with kids to boot. But, when his formal rival Quaritch (Stephen Lang) returns from the dead in his own Na’vi body, the whole Sully family has to move and hide with a new tribe of Na’vi, ones that live and work in the water. Originally released in December, the film has gone on to gross over $2.3 billion worldwide, making it the third highest-grossing film ever, behind just Avengers: Endgame and the original Avatar.
Though the film isn’t up yet on either service, Disney+ already has a landing page. HBO Max… sorry, “Max,” doesn’t.
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