[Correction 5:30am CT: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Avatar: The Way of Water is available to stream on Disney Plus]
The conflict between James Cameron’s Avatar movies and the Marvel Cinematic Universe rages on as fans now point to the former to criticize the latter in what can only be described as a bizarre turn of events.
Thanks in large part to Cameron’s complaints about the MCU’s maturity level and the fact that Avengers: Endgame once dethroned the first Avatar movie as the highest-grossing movie of all time, the contention between the two franchises is seeing another spike now that Avatar: The Way of Water is finally available to stream at home.
As a matter of fact, it’s the VOD release of The Way of Water that has granted some fans leeway to further criticize the MCU, this time with fingers pointed at Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Both films operated with a multimillion-dollar budget, both raked in millions of dollars at the box office — okay, The Way of Water raked in just a few billion more — and both films currently sit pretty on Rotten Tomatoes with certified fresh critic scores and audience scores Disney can be proud of. Yet the consensus among some is that The Way of Water is actually the kind of movie (or the kind of box office success) Wakanda Forever was trying to be. And failed.
The Way of Water is additionally being lauded for succeeding in one specific area where Wakanda Forever fell short: its lighting. Not more than two months ago, Wakanda Forever was lambasted for being too dark. Not tonally – literally. That is far from the case with The Way of Water.
Several scenes in Wakanda Forever took place at night or within dimly lit caverns, and unfortunately, those scenes became essentially unwatchable to viewers at home who could barely discern who was on screen or what was happening. The same cannot be said for The Way of Water, which can apparently be watched even with the lights on. As Twitter user @childe_dirk put it: “I feel like this shouldn’t be a big deal but here we are.”
The one-two punch to the MCU and Wakanda Forever didn’t stop there. The VOD release of The Way of Water prompted one Twitter user to ask fellow moviegoers to rate The Way of Water on a scale from one to 10. Instead of choosing a number, one user simply said, “Better than black panther.”
And they weren’t the only ones.
What is most surprising here is the unforgotten reception The Way of Water received before, during, and after its cinematic release. The movie was plagued by a campaign of complaints with virtually nothing to be said to now justify its $2.3 billion box office achievement. At one point, it was even predicted to be a box office failure.
And still, here we are with more than a select few moviegoers choosing Avatar over the MCU, which would normally be nothing to balk at — just a simple game of artistic comparison — but given the downward trajectory the MCU has taken in the wake of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the move feels less commonplace and more suggestive of a seismic shift currently taking place within the superhero franchise.