Avatar 3 is expected to be released in 2025 and will be the biggest test of James Cameron’s sequel plan for his celebrated Avatar franchise. Outdoing the first and third highest-grossing movies of all time in Avatar (2209) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), respectively, will be an incredible task, but if there’s anyone who can achieve it, it is surely Cameron himself. The sequel plan for Avatar 3, 4, and 5 was originally anticipated for all three films to be released before the end of the decade but several delays in production pushed Avatar 4 to a 2029 release and Avatar 5 to arrive in 2031.
Avatar 3 is expected to be titled The Seed Bearer and will likely place emphasis on the Na’vi’s rebuilding of the Tree of Souls and the introduction of a fire-based tribe called the Ash People. Many of the original cast members are set to return such as Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Kate Winslett, and Sigourney Weaver. Filming began on both The Way of Water and The Seed Bearer back in 2017 with production beginning on Avatar 4 in 2022. Avatar 3 will be the most revealing test that Cameron’s incredibly profitable franchise will be challenged with, proving whether there is genuine interest in future Avatar films.
Avatar 2 Was A Massive Hit, But Benefited From A 13-Year Delay
Avatar 2 had the rare benefit of being released thirteen years after the original film, allowing Cameron and his crew to perfect every detail and frame of the massive film. The notably long duration of time between Avatar and its sequel allowed a great amount of anticipation to build and made the release of The Way of Water feel like a cultural milestone, much like Barbie and Oppenheimer did in the summer of 2023. Putting so much time in between Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water would be a risky move for most franchise directors, but James Cameron proved again how he redefines convention in Hollywood.
Avatar 2 took so long to come out mainly due to the fact that the necessary motion capture and CGI technologies needed to be invented to capture Cameron’s vision exactly. Known as a meticulous perfectionist, Cameron would not start shooting Avatar 2 until the technologies had caught up with his creative expectations on screen, which required lifelike CGI and motion capture methods to be utilized underwater. Cameron was unsure about the future of his Avatar franchise until after the original movie came out, writing the concepts of all the scripts for Avatar 2 – 5 before shooting The Way of Water.
Avatar 3, 4 & 5 Are Releasing More Like A Normal Franchise, Which Puts The Pressure On Avatar 3
As a result of several delays due to the pandemic, the WGA & SGA strikes, and Cameron’s insistence on waiting for the advent of new motion capture and CGI technologies, Cameron successfully mapped out his next three Avatar sequels after The Way of Water. Cameron told Vanity Fair, “The scripts took four years. We’re doing very well because of all the time that we had to develop the system and the pipeline and all that. So when all the scripts were approved, everything was designed. Every character, every creature, every setting.” This indicates that Cameron’s sequels will have been thoroughly developed despite the less time in between their theatrical releases.
Still, Cameron’s sequels will likely be placed under more scrutiny since they won’t have the same luxury of the “rare spectacle” factor that The Way of Water benefited from. It will seemingly be a totally different and possibly more difficult challenge to get people to return to the Avatar franchise every few years, much like a typical Hollywood movie franchise. The biggest problem Avatar 3 – 5 faces will be the loss of its “once in a decade” allure and hype, giving critics and audiences alike the chance to grade it but more standards metrics and take it at face value.
Avatar 3, 4 & 5 Will Be Successful, But Will They Be As Big As The First Two Movies?
There’s no doubt that the most profitable director of all time, after Steven Spielberg, will come through in major and groundbreaking ways with his future Avatar films. If there’s one thing most have learned about James Cameron, it’s that betting against him is almost always a poor decision. Avatar 3 will still have much of the momentum from the landmark success of The Way of Water behind it and the introduction of the Ash People tribe sounds promising, to say the least. There is, of course, the chance that Avatar 3 will miss the mark and fail to reach the heights of its predecessors’ ceiling-defining success, but that’s a question most people will pay to find out.
Avatar 3
- Summary:
- Avatar 3 is the third entry in James Cameron’s five-movie franchise set in the fictional world of Pandora. Following Jake Sully and Neytiri’s first encounter in 2009’s Avatar and Colonel Miles Quaritch’s retaliation in 2022’s The Way of Water, Avatar 3 sees the Na’vi heroes come across a fire Na’vi tribe known as the Ash People.
- Release Date:
- 2025-12-19
- Cast:
- Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang
- Director:
- James Cameron
- Genres:
- Sci-Fi
- Writers:
- Josh Friedman, James Cameron
- Studio(s):
- 20th Century
- Distributor(s):
- 20th Century
- prequel(s):
- Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water
- Franchise(s):
- Avatar
