James Cameron says the upcoming Avatar 3 will place an emphasis on character development over visual effects.
Speaking with GQ, Cameron provided an update about what fans can expect out of the third movie in the Avatar franchise.
“The big [creative] advance in this movie is just going to be greater character depth,” Cameron said. “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 are 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.”
James Cameron on how Avatar differs from the Terminator franchise
Cameron continued, “The Terminator [films were] warnings, which is what science fiction is good at. But I feel like with the Avatar films, we want to emphasize what’s great about us. The Na’vi are that which we used to be, or that which we can maybe still be—[you can] step outside ourselves and see ourselves in a more positive light. The colors pop in the Avatar films. They feel rich. There’s a period of time where movies, especially dystopian science fiction films, were just desaturated. They were dark. They were like all blue or all cyan, and the whole thing was depressing. And we went exactly the opposite with Avatar, and obviously the second film as well, to remind people that there is beauty in the world and there can be beauty in cinema no matter how dark the story gets.”
Avatar 3 — which producer Jon Landau recently confirmed would not be titled Avatar: The Seed Bearer — is currently scheduled to release on December 19, 2025.