Avatar: Fire and Ash will be a heartbreaker, according to star Zoe Saldaña. In a new interview with Deadline published this weekend, the actress teased the plot of the upcoming movie, without giving too much away. She seemed to be warning fans that the sci-fi epic is not going to shy away from grief and the toll it can take on a family.
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Fair warning: there are spoilers for Avatar: The Way of Water ahead! “The way that we left the Sully family, they’re mourning heavily the loss of their child,” Saldaña said. “So I do believe that that will carry out a great deal in the third installment of Avatar. Jake and Neytiri are on this journey of acceptance, of accepting who they are and what they must be for each other and how they’re going to push forward to keep their family safe.”
Avatar is known for its visual spectacles and its cutting edge technology, but Saldaña praised director and co-writer James Cameron for the story at the heart of it all. She said: “I love the fact that in the core of this entire saga is a beautiful love story, and I love that Jim really wrote that for them. But it’s not going to be easy. They’re not always going to meet eye to eye, and I just hope that they keep each other safe. That’s my hope for them.”
[RELATED: Everything We Know About Avatar: Fire and Ash (And When You Can Watch It)]
Saldaña’s insight here might be the most we’ve heard about the story of Fire and Ash so far. We know that the story will once again take us to a different place on Pandora and introduce us to a new group of Na’vi with a different culture — again with an elemental theme based on their habitat. we also heard from producer Jon Landau that there might be some antagonistic Na’vi in this movie for a change. Cameron said that the third movie has greater character depth than the first two installments.
If Cameron’s Avatar is known for anything else, it’s the long wait between films. The first movie debuted in 2009, and despite Cameron’s very vocal promises for a sequel, it took until 2022 for The Way of Water to arrive. Now that the gears are in motion again, it seems like things will move faster and more consistently now. Avatar: Fire and Ash is currently scheduled for release on December 19, 2025. Two more untitled sequels are in the works, and are scheduled for 2029 and 2031, respectively.
Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water are both streaming now on Disney+. Avatar: Fire and Ash is scheduled to hit theaters on December 19, 2025.
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