The first trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash is breathtaking. What else did you expect?

By Dan Girolamo Published July 28, 2025

The Pandora discourse has begun yet again with the arrival of the Avatar: Fire and Ash trailer. The formula goes something like this: someone on the internet will say that Avatar is actually not good and has no cultural impact. Then, the trailer will earn rave reviews for its breathtaking visuals thanks to the work of its technical maestro, James Cameron.

Prognosticators will then try to determine if another Avatar movie will be a billion-dollar hit. Fast forward to a few months after the release, and the Avatar movie will be one of the highest-grossing movies ever. This scenario happened in 2022 with Avatar: The Way of Water, the third-highest-grossing movie of all time. Will history repeat itself with Avatar 3?

In the previous two Avatar movies, the enemy has been the RDA. In Avatar: Fire and Ash, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his family face off against the Ash People, an aggressive Na’vi tribe that is one with fire. It’s similar to how the Metkayina tribe revolved around water. The Ash People are led by Varang (Oona Chaplin), who chillingly tells a captured Kiri, “Your goddess has no dominion here.” The other Na’vi clan introduced in Fire and Ash is the peaceful Wind Traders.

Still grieving over the loss of her oldest child, Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) has turned her sorrows into hatred. Jake knows the dangers of being fueled by rage. “You cannot live like this, baby, in hate,” Jake tells Neytiri. The rest of the trailer previews the jaw-dropping footage of intense battles between the Na’vi clans and the RDA. 

Additional cast members returning for Avatar 3 include Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch, Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge, Kate Winslet as Ronal, Cliff Curtis as Tonowari, Britain Dalton as Lo’ak, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss as Tuktirey Tuk, Jack Champion as Miles Spider, and David Thewlis as Peylak.

Cameron returns to direct his third Avatar movie from a screenplay he cowrote with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. Cameron is a technical master, so the visuals in Avatar: Fire and Ash will be top-notch. However, Cameron has a gift for injecting emotional beats into his action epics. Cameron said his wife “bawled for four hours” watching Avatar 3. Speaking of hours, Cameron mentioned that Fire and Ash is a “little bit longer” than Way of Water, which carried a 192-minute runtime. 

Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19, 2025.