Publication Empire has published a new image «Avatar: Fire and Ashes» by James Cameron, which shows that the Payakan whale returns in the third movie.
The image shows Lo’ac (Brittan Dalton), Jack and Naytiri’s son, riding Payakan as the giant creature cuts through the waves at sunset, as well as bird-like creatures in the sky.
Payakan is a young Tulkun exile who has become Lo’ak’s spiritual brother, and one of the largest creatures on Pandora, resembling a whale. Richard Bainham, the producer of the «Avatar» series, noted that Payakan turned out to be one of the most popular characters, so this reaction from the audience led the team to play him in the sequel «at the highest level» — and, among other things, to add a girlfriend to the company, named Ta’nok. Another outcast, according to Bainham, who will help to deepen the viewer’s understanding of the Tulkun story by introducing their social structure with a Martriarch and a Patriarch.
This footage is only a small part of the footage that was presented at CinemaCon in Las Vegas in a three-minute video. According to the media present, they were shown dialogues between Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and Jack (Sam Worthington), as well as scenes of the Na’vi tribe’s struggle against a new enemy, the Fire Nation. We expect the teaser to be released publicly in the near future, along with more details about the plot.
From what is known today, the «Avatar» threequel, which will feature Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang reprising their roles, will return viewers to Pandora and focus on the tribes living near the volcanic regions of the planet. Cameron has previously published concept art depicting strange flying creatures and settlement of the fire tribe and also revealed the role of Una Chaplin («Game of Thrones»), who will embody a new antagonist and head of the Ashes clan on the screen.
It is expected that the next trip to Pandora could be very long and «Avatar 3» will have the longest running time in the series — of the previous film «The Waterway», for comparison, it reached 3 hours and 12 minutes. Earlier, Cameron also shared the first reactions to the movie, which identified it at previews as «the best of the» series.
The premiere of the movie «Avatar: Fire and Ashes» is scheduled for December 19, 2025.
The previous installment of the series «Avatar: The Waterway» was released at the end of 2022 (13 years after the first one) and became the sixth film in history to earn more than $2 billion at the global box office (This is exactly how much, according to Cameron himself, was needed to cover the costs of production). First «Avatar» taking into account repeat rentals (but without inflation)ranks first in the list of the richest filmswith revenues of $2.8 billion.