20th Century Studios
On Wednesday morning, the official trailer for Avatar: The Way of the Water — the sequel to 2009’s Avatar, the highest-grossing film of all time — was released, just about six weeks ahead of the film’s official premiere on December 16.
The trailer is obviously quite a big deal as it’s been 13 years in the making, as the original Avatar movie hit theaters in 2009 and director James Cameron has been hard at work on the project, and its subsequent sequels, ever since.
Just to highlight how truly long it’s been since the first Avatar hit theaters, we’ve highlighted some key ways in which our world has changed in the 13 years since 2009.
Here are some of the major ways that the world has changed since the release of the original Avatar movie back in 2009
- The newest iPhone was the iPhone 3GS, the third overall model of the iconic mobile phone.
- The defending champions in the four major American sports were: the Pittsburgh Steelers, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Yankees, and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
- LeBron James, now playing in his 20th NBA season, was in his final year with the Cleveland Cavaliers and had yet to win an NBA championship.
- Manchester City had yet to win a Premier League title. They’ve since won the Premier League six times.
- Uber launched in March 2009, while Instagram was still a year away from being launched in 2010.
- We’ve since been through three presidential terms and three different Presidents: Obama, Trump, and Biden.
- Speaking of Donald Trump, in 2009, he was a member of the Democratic party (he registered with the party back in 2001)) and was the host of the reality TV show The Apprentice.
- The highest-grossing movie of all time not named Avatar was Titanic.
- Only ONE superhero film had earned over $1 billion at the global box office: The Dark Knight.
- Marvel Studios had only released Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, and they were both co-productions with Paramount.
- The biggest movie of The Rock’s film career was 2001’s The Mummy Returns.
- 2009 was the year that Netflix streams overtook their DVD shipments.
- Kim Kardashian was dating NFL running back Reggie Bush, while Kendall Jenner was just 14 years old and Kylie Jenner was 12. The latter Jenner now has a reported net worth of close to $1 billion.
In addition to returning stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, and Sigourney Weaver, who all starred in the original film, The Way of the Water also stars Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Michelle Yeoh, Brendan Cowell, Oona Chaplin, CJ Jones, and Vin Diesel.
In addition to The Way of the Water, James Cameron has another three Avatar films planned, with Avatar 3 set to hit theaters in 2024, followed by Avatar 4 in 2026 and Avatar 5 in 2028.