Before Avatar: The Way of Water hit theaters in December 2022, director James Cameron was already mostly done with the third film in the franchise.
Cameron explained to Entertainment Weekly that he shot parts of the franchise’s third and fourth installments to avoid “the Stranger Things effect,” a.k.a., child actors drastically growing in between films.
“They’re all supposed to still be in high school [but] they look like they’re 27,” the director said in December 2022 of the Netflix series. “You know, I love the show. It’s OK, we’ll suspend disbelief. We like the characters, but, you know.”
Cameron went on to describe The Way of The Water star Jack Champion — who plays human teen Spider — as a “growing weed.” He added: “We shot with Jack when he was 14 and 15, almost up to 16. So we were shooting him over an 18-month period.”
In August 2024, Cameron told D23 Expo attendees that that the threequel is officially titled Avatar: Fire and Ash. “You’ll see a lot more Pandora that you never saw before … It’s an insane adventure and a feast for the eyes, but it’s also got very high emotional stakes, more than ever before,” Cameron said during the presentation. “We’re going into really challenging territory for all the characters you know and love.”
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