With Avatar: The Way of Water, the planet of Pandora got a whole lot bigger, and future sequels will only expand its scope. The third Avatar film, now titled Avatar: Fire and Ash, will take our heroes to a new region and introduce them to two new Na’vi tribes. That won’t be the end, either: if Cameron has his way, we’ll have Avatar films coming out every few years until 2031. But the wait for each Avatar movie will be a long one, especially when it comes to the presence of a certain Oscar-winning actress.
Way back in 2019, the Avatar franchise got a boost when Michelle Yeoh was cast as a scientist named Dr. Karina Mogue. Fans have been waiting patiently for her to pop up, but Yeoh didn’t appear in The Way of the Water, and she won’t be in Fire and Ash, either. According to Cameron, Yeoh won’t play a role in the franchise until the yet-untitled Avatar 4, set to release in 2029. That means fans will be waiting another five years to meet her character, and 10 years total since she was officially cast.
Cameron explained the situation in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. While he admits the full scope of her involvement “got a little bit misreported” at the time, particularly after Yeoh was photographed on the Avatar set in 2021, the filmmaker insists the wait will be worth it. “Michelle Yeoh won’t be in 3. She’s in 4 and 5,” Cameron said. “She will be coming in soon to do her part, which is an interesting, fun character.”
The director also explained why Yeoh was brought on for Avatar 4 so early. “This whole thing has been planned for years and years,” Cameron said. “We’ve been working on parts of 4 even as we go along, mostly because we’ve got this young cast. We had to shoot them all while they were still young.”
With the Avatar sequels putting more emphasis on the next generation of the Sully family, it makes sense to focus on their adventures before it’s too late. It won’t be easy for fans to wait five years for Avatar 4, but at least we have Fire and Ash to look forward to. In the meantime, Yeoh has her hands full with plenty of other sci-fi and fantasy properties: she’ll appear in the first Wicked film this year, and in 2025 she’ll return to the Star Trek universe in a full-length feature, Section 31. The Avatar franchise is just a small part of Yeoh’s career, so expect to see much more of her in the years to come.
