James Cameron Reveals Stephen Lang’s Avatar 3 Role — And It’s a True Existential Dilemma
James Cameron says Avatar 3 Fire and Ash will shift Stephen Lang’s Colonel Quaritch from a straightforward villain to a morally murky figure in the grip of an identity crisis, as he revealed to Empire.
James Cameron is not letting Avatar 3 coast on the same old villain. He just confirmed to Empire that Stephen Lang's Colonel Miles Quaritch is headed into some messy, morally gray territory in Avatar: Fire and Ash. Translation: less one-note military bulldozer, more existential crisis in a 9-foot blue body.
Quaritch, rebooted
Remember: this Quaritch is a fresh Na'vi-grown body carrying the memories of the original human Quaritch. And the human Quaritch had a son, Spider, who we met in The Way of Water. The new Quaritch knows all that, and it is scrambling his identity in a big way.
'Am I a completely new person? Am I bound by the rules and the behaviours of the person whose memories and personality I was imprinted with?'
That is Cameron's setup for where the character goes next, and he is not just talking about a mental shift. He is teasing a spiritual one too: at what point does Quaritch realize he is more Na'vi than human?
Wait, are Quaritch and Jake going to be... allies?
Wild as it sounds, Cameron also teased to Empire that Jake Sully might actually want Quaritch to 'plug in' and be on his side. He would rather have this guy as an asset than a forever-enemy. And as Cameron put it, it is 'very uninteresting to just have two guys trying to kill each other for three movies.' Hard to argue with that.
- Quick refresher from The Way of Water: Quaritch hunted the Sullys hard, but had quieter moments with Spider once he realized the kid was his biological son.
- Despite all that, Quaritch's campaign has meant a lot of dead Na'vi and wrecked sacred sites.
- He is directly tied to the death of Jake and Neytiri's eldest, Neteyam.
- In the end, Spider saved Quaritch from drowning anyway, which is probably the crack that lets this new storyline in.
Redemption arc or just a smarter villain?
Cameron did not promise a full-on redemption. If anything, it sounds like Quaritch will live in the gray. The twist is that we might see him wrestle with identity in a meaningful way while possibly working alongside Jake when it serves a bigger goal. Which, honestly, is more interesting than rerunning the same grudge match.
When we see it
Avatar: Fire and Ash hits US theaters on December 19, 2025.