Avatar: Fire and Ash
Is an upcoming American epic science fiction film directed by James Cameron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver from a story the trio wrote with Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno. Distributed by 20th Century Studios and produced by Lightstorm Entertainment, it is the sequel to Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) and the third installment in the Avatar film series. Cast members Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, and Kate Winslet reprise their roles from previous films.
Cameron, who had stated in mid-2006 that he would like to make sequels to Avatar (2009) if it was successful, announced the first two sequels in early 2010 following the success of the first film, with the then-untitled Avatar 3 aiming for a December 2015 release. However, the addition of two more sequels (four in total), and the development of new technology required to film performance capture scenes underwater, a feat never accomplished before, led to significant delays to allow the crew more time to work on the writing, pre-production, and visual effects. Avatar: Fire and Ash started shooting simultaneously with Avatar: The Way of Water in New Zealand on September 25, 2017; filming completed in late December 2020, after over three years of shooting.
The film's theatrical release has been subject to nine delays, with the latest occurring on June 13, 2023 it is scheduled for release in the United States on December 19, 2025. Two additional sequels, Avatar 4 and Avatar 5, are in various stages of production and are expected to be released in 2029 and 2031, respectively.
Premise
One year after settling in with the Metkayina Clan, Jake and Neytiri's family grapples with grief after Neteyam's death. Eventually, they encounter a new, aggressive Na'vi tribe called the Ash People, led by the fiery tribe leader, Varang, who has allied with Jake's enemy, Quaritch, as the conflict on Pandora escalates to devastating consequences.
Production Origins
In 1994, director James Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for Avatar, drawing inspiration from science fiction books he had read in his childhood, as well as from adventure novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard. Parts of the movie also came to him in a dream when he was 19 years old. He dreamed about a bioluminescent forest with fiber-optic trees, fan lizards, a river with bioluminescent particles and a purple moss that lit up when stepped on. When he woke up, he made a drawing of the scene and later used it in the movie. In August 1996, Cameron announced that after completing Titanic, he would film Avatar, which would make use of synthetic, or computer-generated, actors. The project would cost $100 million and involve at least six actors in leading roles "who appear to be real but do not exist in the physical world". Visual effects house Digital Domain, with whom Cameron has a partnership, joined the project, which was supposed to begin production in mid-1997 for a 1999 release. However, Cameron felt that the technology had not caught up with the story and vision that he intended to tell. He decided to concentrate on making documentaries and refining the technology for the next few years. It was revealed in a Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story that 20th Century Fox had fronted $10 million to Cameron to film a proof-of-concept clip for Avatar, which he showed to Fox executives in October 2005.
In February 2006, Cameron revealed that his film Project 880 was "a retooled version of Avatar", a film that he had tried to make years earlier, citing the technological advances in the creation of the computer-generated characters Gollum, King Kong, and Davy Jones. Cameron had chosen Avatar over his project Battle Angel after completing a five-day camera test in the previous year.