Avatar: Fire and Ash to be the longest film of the franchise till now, reveals director James Cameron

James Cameron has just revealed new details on Avatar's latest addition to the franchise: Avatar: Fire and Ash as the film is all set to explore a new world of events, following the ones shown in Avatar: The Way of Water.

Cameron, who has directed, produced and written the film, talked about the film's length and revealed that it will be longer than its predecessor, which was three hours and twelve minutes long. Talking about the length of the film and how the crew tried to fit all the events and ideas into it, Cameron told Empire,

“In a nutshell, we had too many great ideas packed into act one of movie 2. The [film] was moving like a bullet train, and we weren’t drilling down enough on character. So I said, ‘Guys, we’ve got to split it.’”

The filmmaker also delved deeper into the process of creating the project and giving the characters new lives as he revealed how much of it has derived from his own experience. In the same interview, Cameron added,

“These characters are amalgams of us, our childhoods, our role as parents, the mistakes we made, and probably to some extent continue to make as parents."

The film was co-written by Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa, who also shared their creative processes behind the film, talking about how their writing processes allowed the characters to breathe and how they tried to give the characters as much authenticity as they could.

---

More details on Avatar: Fire and Ash

Not much has been revealed about the plot of the new film, but we do know that it will explore newer clans and more of Pandora. Cameron has also previously revealed that the film will be darker than its former parts.

Talking about what to expect in Avatar: Fire and Ash, Cameron told GQ,

"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."

We have been introduced to the Wind clan, who have been described as nomadic traders who are fun creatures. The fire aspect of the film will be portrayed by the Ash clan, as revealed by Cameron earlier.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is set to release on December 19, 2025.