If you’ve ever found yourself lost in the world of Avatar, you have Jon Landau to thank. The Oscar-nominated producer has worked with director James Cameron for about 25 years—a relationship that stretches from 1997’s world-conquering Titanic to 2022’s equally epochal Avatar: The Way of Water, which debuts June 7 on Disney+.

As Cameron’s producing partner, Landau helps oversee the massive teams behind the Avatar franchise—everything from production designers to musicians to digital effects artists.

Picking up more than a decade after the events of 2009’s Avatar, The Way of Water follows Marine veteran Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) as he’s pulled even deeper into the world of the Na’vi, an indigenous culture inhabiting the lush 22nd-century planet Pandora.

After years of anticipation, The Way of Water earned more than $2 billion at the box office—ranking it among the highest-grossing films in history. And while Landau has been in the blockbuster business for a while now, he’s still marveling at the film’s impact—both on and off the screen.

“I got an email from a distributor in Ukraine, where Avatar: The Way of Water became the number one movie of all time,” he says. “It said that in between the horror of real-life bombs dropping and the power going out, people went to see a movie about family and the underdog fighting against people with bigger weapons. And they left the movie with a sense of hope.”

Landau spoke to Apple about the yearslong process of turning this story of love, redemption, and rebellion into a global phenomenon.

Few films have had the reach of Avatar and The Way of Water. What does that say about the power of cinema?

Both Avatar movies begin with the same image: Jake opening his eyes. I view these movies as a challenge to people to open their own eyes, to understand their actions have an impact both on the people around them and the world around them. You can actually expose people to societal issues in a way that transforms them—without them knowing they’ve been transformed. It’s a responsibility of all artists.

The messages in Avatar are not that far below the surface. The fundamental questions of “How do I fit in?” and “How do I survive?” are what so many grapple with.

One of my favorite lines from The Way of Water is “Oel Ngati Kameie,” which is Na’vi for “I see you.” It doesn’t mean “I physically see you.” It means “I see you for who you are, and I accept you for that.” That’s really powerful. It’s a reminder of the foundational connection we have with our family, and how we lose that sometimes.

And when we talk about family, it’s not just your biological family. It’s the family you choose. I’ve had a couple of people come up to me after seeing Avatar and talk about how they now have a greater appreciation for their larger family that they never recognized was there before.

That means a lot to me because we have our own Avatar family people who have been on our team for 18 years now. They had kids who were in diapers when we started, and now they’re getting into college—and they make me a part of that. I love that.

So much of The Way of Water takes place in an ocean environment that’s equal parts realistic and fantastical. How do you strike that balance?

Our creative process starts by studying the incredible thing that is Mother Nature—with all of its diversity and wildness. We’ll look at a poisonous dart frog from the Amazon, and the colors it has, then we’ll blow it up in a different way.

But we don’t view this movie as fantasy. We view it as science fiction that we think of as science fact. We look at all of our designs and try to establish: How do these creatures work? What are their mechanics? First, we’ll play at a foundational level, then we’ll exaggerate and distort the things on the outside. But it’s all grounded, and when you put it all together, you believe they’re together in an ecosystem.

This also holds true for the tech in Avatar. If you look at something as simple as the mech suit, there’s a shoulder girdle that could actually do what our real shoulders can do. These things could work.

The Way of Water has been a huge global success in theaters. Do you expect the film will have a similar impact when folks are experiencing it at home or on mobile?

First of all, we know no matter how successful a movie is at the box office, over the years, more people are going to see it outside of the theaters.

People turn to entertainment today to escape the world we’re in, and there’s no better place to escape to than Pandora, because they get something out of the film emotionally. There’s so much in every frame of The Way Of Water that when people watch it on Disney+, they’re going to see something they’ve never seen before—something they didn’t have time to see in a theater.

For people who haven’t seen it yet, their experience is going to be “Wow, that’s the best presentation I’ve seen on my TV, on my iPad, wherever,” as long as they’re not doing five other things! [Laughs]

When it came to the technology of The Way of Water, was there a particular “wow” moment when your crew was able to pull off something that would not have been possible with the first film?

I’m going to pick a very simple scene, which is when Kiri has gone to seek Grace in the amnio tank. Spider says, “Sometimes, it’s not so great to know who your father is.” When Kiri comes up behind him and gives him a hug, you see her CG arms pressing into his body. We couldn’t have done that with the first movie. In The Way of Water, we have so many scenes where human characters are interacting with CG characters that we had to raise the bar and be photo-real on everything we did.

You’re making the next Avatar movie at what feels like a fascinating moment for the future of storytelling. As someone who’s been on the cutting edge of tech for so long, how do you think this will affect moviemaking?

Technology has transformed productions. A stunt coordinator can now rehearse a fight sequence, shoot it on his iPhone, edit it on his iPad, and show it to the director. You couldn’t do that when I started in this business!

A lot of the time, though, people think of technological advancements as revolutionary, as opposed to evolutionary, so you start chasing something you’re not quite prepared to deal with yet. We think of it more like: “How can these emerging technologies make us better at what we want to do? How can we use tech to present better quality to our consumers?” rather than asking, “Hey, here’s a technology—let’s create a story for it.”

There are more people telling stories than ever before with a 4K camera in their pocket. What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers?

When young filmmakers ask me now, “What should I do?” I tell them, “Find yourself as an artist and do it. Then share it.” Because if you’re not getting feedback, you’re not going to learn.

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