James Cameron Reworked Avatar: Fire and Ash to Pay Off the Original’s Defining Scene
James Cameron made a rare course correction on Avatar: Fire and Ash, reworking Avatar 3 to weave in a major callback to a key scene from the original, he revealed in a new Variety interview.
James Cameron is tweaking Avatar 3 mid-flight, and the change is exactly the kind of big, obvious swing you wonder why it wasn't there from the start: the giant red murder-bird is back.
Yes, Toruk is swooping back in
In a new chat with Variety, Cameron admitted he almost never second-guesses himself. This time, while working on Avatar: Fire and Ash, something felt off. The fix? Bring back Toruk — the massive, crimson flying predator Jake rode in the first movie — because, as Cameron put it, audiences were bound to ask why Jake wouldn't just go get the big bird again. The Way of Water didn't touch that question at all, which made the omission feel louder.
"Oh, he's got to go get the bird. ... He should get the bird. Get the Toruk."
Here's the inside baseball part: Toruk wasn't even in Fire and Ash originally. Cameron says he had planned to save that card for a later sequel. Then he changed course, rewrote the script, tossed some scenes, and shot two or three new ones built around the Toruk idea. According to him, it clicked, it plays, and the cast was fired up about it. He also framed it as something tied to Jake's destiny, which sounds like we're getting a deliberate echo of that first-film moment, not just fan service.
The timing and the stakes
- Title: Avatar: Fire and Ash (aka Avatar 3)
- Release date: December 19, 2025
- Gap: arrives three years after Avatar: The Way of Water
- The callback: Toruk returns to answer the lingering "why not use the big bird again?" logic hole
- The change: Cameron rewrote and shot two or three additional scenes, replacing some earlier material
- Box office context: Avatar and The Way of Water sit at #1 and #3 all time worldwide; for Fire and Ash to join that club, it'll need to flirt with the $2 billion mark
Short version: Cameron was saving the Toruk card for later, then said forget it and played it now. If you've been waiting for another full-on big-bird flex from Jake, sounds like Fire and Ash heard you.