James Cameron Sets Avatar 4 Timeline After Fire and Ash
James Cameron has set the clock on Avatar 4, placing it after Fire and Ash and confirming a hefty chunk is already in the can. The Sully family’s saga is primed for its next surge across Pandora.
James Cameron just put a pin in where Avatar 4 sits in the saga, and it comes with a little behind-the-scenes wrinkle. The next one up, Avatar: Fire and Ash, will hand off to Avatar 4 after an eight-year time jump. And yes, they quietly shot pieces of 4 already, even though 3 is not out until 2025.
The jump, and why they filmed 4 early
In a career-spanning chat with Vanity Fair, Cameron said Avatar 4 begins eight years after the end of Avatar: Fire and Ash. Because a bunch of the story revolves around the Sully kids, the team grabbed some 4 footage during the previous shoot to lock in the actors at the right ages. Translation: the kids will not be kids forever, so they banked the material now and will circle back for the rest later.
A capture marathon across sequels
Cameron also spelled out how they shot the last two. The cast did roughly 18 months of performance capture total, about nine months per movie, bouncing between The Way of Water and Fire and Ash day to day, with a little Avatar 4 sprinkled in. He was adamant this is not a few days in a voice booth like a standard animated gig; what you see the characters do is what the actors performed on set.
As for when the remaining Avatar 4 scenes get made, Cameron was candid that the timeline depends on, well, results:
'We gotta make some money on the first three.'
Where this leaves the franchise
- There is an eight-year gap between the end of Avatar: Fire and Ash (the third film) and the start of Avatar 4.
- A significant chunk of Avatar 4 is already in the can, filmed during the capture run for The Way of Water and Fire and Ash to preserve the young cast's ages.
- Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in US theaters on December 19, 2025.
- Avatar 4 is currently dated for December 21, 2029.
- For what it is worth, the first two films are still the highest- and third-highest-grossing movies of all time worldwide, so the coffers are not exactly empty.
Big picture: Avatar remains a sprawling Sully-family epic, and Cameron is building the runway far ahead, even if the plane is landing in stages. The eight-year skip should shake up where these characters are when we see them again in 4, whenever the rest of it rolls cameras.