Go Back to Pandora With the First ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ Trailer

It took 13 years for James Cameron to create the first Avatar sequel, The Way of Water. Part of the delay, Cameron always insisted, was to give him time to develop multiple sequels that would then hit theaters in relatively fast and reliable fashion in the years after the second movie.

The dude’s a man of his word. Three years after The Way of Water opened in theaters (and grossed a mind-boggling $2.3 billion (money that would make it the biggest hit of basically any filmmaker’s career ... if that filmmaker were not named James Cameron), the third Avatar is nearing its release. Dubbed Avatar: Fire and Ash, the film continues and expands the story of the planet Pandora, and explores the various factions fighting for control of the world and its valuable resources.

The first trailer for the movie just debuted online — watch it below:

The thing I find most interesting about this trailer is how few human faces there are in the Avatar series by this point. The first film was very much a movie about a clash of cultures and worlds; the human colonizers and the native Na’vi. The only notable human character in this Fire and Ash trailer is Spider, the human adopted son of Jake and Neytiri (who also is the evil Quaritch’s biological son, just to really amp up the Shakespearean drama). Other than good old Spider, basically all the heroes and villains — including several former human characters — have become Na’vi by this point, including both Jake and Quaritch.

Here is the film’s official synopsis:

With “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” James Cameron takes audiences back to Pandora in an immersive new adventure with Marine turned Na’vi leader Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Na’vi warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and the Sully family. The film, which has a screenplay by James Cameron & Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver, and a story by James Cameron & Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver & Josh Friedman & Shane Salerno, also stars Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin, Cliff Curtis, Britain Dalton, Trinity Bliss, Jack Champion, Bailey Bass and Kate Winslet.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is currently scheduled to open in theaters on December 19, 2025.