The original "Avatar" movie released in 2009 got 9 academy award nominations of which it won 3.
The theatrical relase of its sequel "Avatar: The Way of Water" is planned for December 16, 2022.
The market will resolve "Yes", if the sequel will be nominated for 9 or more academy awards for the 95th academy awards.
The market will resolve "No" if it receives 8 or less nominations.
The market will resolve "N/A" if the sequel fails to be released during the considered time frame of the 95th academy awards.
Sep 28, 11:14pm: Will Avatar 2 gain 9 or more Oscar nominations? → Will "Avatar: The Way of Water" gain 9 or more Oscar nominations?
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According to Goldderby, 9 looks extremely unlikely. I think Horace He's reasoning is right, but to get a bit more concrete:
Extremely Likely:
-Visual Effects
Likely:
-Cinematography
-Production Design
-Sound
Maybe:
-Picture (leaning yes: 7th rank, category typically has 10 or a bit fewer)
-Director (knife edge, leaning no)
-Film Editing (knife edge, leaning no)
Unlikely:
-Screenplay (probably quite unlikely, #11 with 5 picks
-Costume Design (probably quite unlikely, #18 with 5 picks)
-Score
Extremely unlikely:
-Any acting category
There's ten total categories vaguely in play—it has to get all of them but one for this to resolve yes. The movie has noticeably worse reviews than the previous one, so nearly-sweeping the maybes and unlikelys seems highly unlikely to me.
https://www.goldderby.com/odds/combined-odds/oscars-nominations-2023-predictions/
I think this market is overpriced, I'd estimate it at closer to 5%.
Avatar won 9 nominations the last time around: Picture, Director, Art Direction (renamed Production Design), Cinematography, Editing, Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects.
The big problem here is that Sound Editing + Sound Mixing have now been merged into one category (just Sound), so Avatar the Way of Water is going need to pick up another nomination somewhere else. And I don't see any other category it's remotely competitive in (closest would be Adapted Screenplay, but that's a .... very long shot).
Even worse, The Way of Water is not looking very competitive in Score, and has a fairly substantial chance of missing out on Editing, Director, or Production Design.
TL;DR: Even if everything goes right for Avatar, its ceiling looks like 8 nominations, without an absolute shocker of a nomination (perhaps in Adapted Screenplay). And more likely than not, it's going to miss out on some nominations it got last time.