There are a lot of reasons to be excited about the 2025 movie schedule, but one of them has to be the upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash. The third film in the Avatar franchise will hit theaters in December. Its box office success seems all but certain, given that the first two films are among the highest-grossing movies ever made, and James Cameron has indicated that he thinks Avatar 3 is the best one yet.
The filming of Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 must have been a massive undertaking. The two films, along with the first portion of Avatar 4, were all shot as a single gigantic production. Speaking with Collider, star Stephen Lang explained how much work he did on the upcoming Avatar movies, and said he believes he is finally done, though he doesn’t sound entirely convinced:
I give you a tentative yes, absolutely. But you know, with Jim, you never know. I believe I'm finished. I've already been finished! By God, I've shot enough! But as I say, with him, there's a phone line that's always open that says, 'We need you here. Get your ass out here,' and I'll be there. I think it's done. I think we're done.
It certainly sounds like Stephen Lang got called back a lot by James Cameron during the production of the Avatar sequels. Reshoots are pretty standard practice for any major studio production, especially movies with a significant amount of CGI, and Avatar is almost all CGI.
One can imagine that filming two entire movies, plus doing whatever reshoot work was needed for both of them, probably meant a lot of trips to New Zealand over the last couple of years. It sounds like Lang thought he was done more than once, so he can never be entirely sure he’s actually finished.
One assumes that when he says he thinks “we’re done,” he’s referring only to the upcoming Avatar sequel and not the two additional movies that are set to go into production after Avatar: Fire and Ash arrives in theaters. As far as we know, Lang will be a part of those films as well. At this point, nothing short of a complete box office disaster is likely to prevent those from being made.
Of course, when that happens, it will mean going back to a massive production once again. As with Avatar 2 and 3, Avatar 4 and 5 are planned to shoot simultaneously. Avatar 5 currently has a release date of 2031. That’s a lot of time for a lot of callbacks, Stephen Lang, best be ready.