During its presentation at the D23 Expo, 20th Century Studios dropped a major surprise on fans by revealing several scenes from 'Avatar: The Way of Water', James Cameron's second installment of his epic sci-fi franchise. It also showed a new trailer.

The film is set for a December 16 release in theatres, reports Deadline.

The scenes, which were in 3D, were shown for attendees on two huge screens in the main Anaheim Convention Center room where the studio's presentations with Disney siblings Marvel and Lucasfilm were held.

One scene showed the Nav'i swimming underwater. Another is a youngster saying he wants to be different from his father.

Additionally, there were scenes of some kind of hostage situation, with combat in the woods at night. Another moment showed an emotional conversation between Sam Worthington's and Zoe Saldana's characters. A tribal leader tells younger Nav'i that war is bad.

A sequel to 2009's Avatar, the script comes from Cameron and Josh Friedman, with Worthington and Saldana starring alongside Michelle Yeoh, Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin and more.

Cameron joined the presentation today virtually from New Zealand, where he is finishing the film and working in the middle of a "pretty hectic" five-year production cycle on the second, third and fourth installments of the series.

"It's going great and the stuff coming in from Weta is looking spectacular," Cameron told the crowd. "I'm super excited to be finally finishing up movie 2. I know everyone's been waiting a long time. Hopefully, we'll show something today and you can decide if it's been worth it."

Worthington and Saldana are parents in the new film. "The whole movie deals with protecting family. We've all gone through Covid and realised that love and being with family is paramount to what life is and it's worth fighting for. We put that in the movie," Worthington said on stage.

Cameron also said they remastered Avatar for a whole new generation of movie fans "who never got to see it in a movie theatre. That will be the drumroll and remind people of the story."