Avatar: Way of Water took over London’s Leicester Square for its world premiere on Tuesday afternoon, with the director, producer Jon Landeau and entire cast on hand to help give the sci-fi epic a major push as it vies to break enough box office records to recoup the film’s eye-popping $350 million-plus budget (and give enough momentum for Cameron’s planned further three sequels).

On the exec side, chairman of Disney Studios content Alan Bergman and 20th Century Studios president Steve Asbell were also in attendance.

“I’ve been working on the production for this for five years, and realizing it’s done … it’s kind of like Zen meditation,” said Cameron, speaking on the carpet. Talking to The Hollywood Reporter later, he acknowledged how much money the film needed to break even, saying it “probably had to be the seventh or eighth” most successful film of all time.

“Which is quite a daunting bar to get over, especially now, because the market has contracted,” he said, adding that if he had his way he’d have waited “another five years to release the film, so we’re totally out of the pandemic.”

The Way of Water represents a decade-long passion project for Cameron and his first film since the original Avatar. He described his initial desire to turn his creation into a franchise with several installments.

“I want to tell an epic story over a number of films. Let’s paint on a bigger canvas. Let’s plan it that way. Let’s do The Lord of the Rings. Of course, they had the books. I had to write the book first, which isn’t a book, it’s a script,” he said.

Del Toro said that Cameron was a “master at the peak of his powers.”

Avatar: The Way of Water lands in cinemas worldwide on December 16