It’s already been just about a year since the theatrical debut of Avatar: The Way of Water, but we still have quite a wait for the third film in the franchise hits theaters. Luckily, director James Cameron has shared some new details about the upcoming sequels to hold us over.
- Variety reports that Cameron has said Avatar 3 is “right on track” for its December 2025 release date.
- The film was shot concurrently with Avatar: The Way of Water in order to ensure the continuity in the age of the films’ characters.
- Parts of Avatar 4 were also shot at the same time.
- Cameron shared that the biggest development from the upcoming third film will be with the characters:
- “The big [creative] advance in [‘Avatar 3’] is just going to be greater character depth. We’re seeing new cultures, new creatures — all the same stuff you’d expect from an Avatar movie, but the whole idea of this cycle of films is to live with these people and go on this epic journey with them. So I think it’s not about, ‘We’re going to show you the best water [VFX] ever done’ — but you get more into the heart and soul of the characters. And there’s some very interesting new characters that come in as well. This is a journey over time. It will play out through movie three, into movie four and movie five. There’s an epic cycle to the whole thing.”
- While we don’t know much about the upcoming third film, it has been revealed that it will introduce “the Ash People,” described as “an aggressive, volcanic race” of Na’vi.
- Varang, the leader of “the Ash people,” will be portrayed by Oona Chaplin.
- “There are good humans and there are bad humans. It’s the same thing on the Na’vi side. Oftentimes, people don’t see themselves as bad. What is the root cause of how they evolve into what we perceive as bad? Maybe there are other factors there that we aren’t aware of.”
- As for Avatar 4, Cameron explained that the film will see a time jump of six years:
- “We see them and then we go away for six years and we come back. And so the part where we come back is the part we haven’t shot yet. So we’ll start on that after three is released.”
- While it was previously known there would be a time jump within the franchise, this new information lets us know it will come in the 4th film.
- Avatar 4 is currently slated for a December 2029 debut, with Avatar 5 following in December 2031, 22 years after the original film.
- Avatar: The Way of Water raked in $2.3 billion in its theatrical run, making it the third-highest grossing film of all time.