Disney has announced that tickets for James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash will go on sale this Monday (likely accompanied by a new trailer), marking the news with a new poster featuring the Na'vi riding across the ocean on their Leonopteryx.
We recently learned that Avatar: Fire and Ash will clock-in at a butt-numbing 3 hours, 15 minutes, making it the longest movie in the franchise so far. 2009's Avatar ran for 2 hours, 42 minutes, while 2022's The Way of Water was 3 hours, 12 minutes.
Though these movies definitely have their detractors, the first two films were massively successful at the box office, and we fully expect Fire and Ash to follow suit this December - especially as it's now been confirmed that the first trailer for Avengers: Doomsday will screen ahead of the movie.
Empire Magazine has also shared a couple of new stills from the movie, along with an interview with Cameron, who hints at a fairly significant plot development relating to the villainous Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang).
Possible spoilers ahead.
"He's undergoing an identity crisis,” reveals Cameron. “His interest in the biological son of his biological precursor form is all about trying to define, ‘Am I a completely new person? Am I bound by the rules and the behaviours of the person whose memories and personality I was imprinted with?’ It’s a true existential dilemma for him in the philosophical sense.”
When asked if this means that Quaritch could end up joining the good guys, Cameron gave a very telling response.
“He could connect, he could plug in — Jake wants him to,” says Cameron. “I don’t want to tell you where it goes, but we’re gonna see all this play out, because Jake would rather have this guy on side.”
The big [creative] advance in [Fire and Ash] is just going to be greater character depth," Cameron said in a recent interview. "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."
Avatar 3 will see the return of cast members Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Dileep Rao, Matt Gerald, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Jemaine Clement, Britain Dalton, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jack Champion, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo and Duane Evans, with David Thewlis also on board as a new character named Paylak.
Fire and Ash has been hit with numerous delays, but is finally set to release in theaters on December 19. Two additional sequels, the still untitled Avatar 4 and Avatar 5, are in various stages of production and are expected to be released in 2029 and 2031, respectively.
Are you looking forward to the movie? Let us know in the comments section down below.