Development at the Wellington premiere of the film in December 2025. Following the box office success of
Avatar (2009), Cameron announced two sequels, which were originally scheduled for release in 2014 and 2015. He said he would shoot the sequels
back-to-back and at a
higher frame rate than the industry standard
24 frames per second, in order to add a heightened sense of reality. In late 2013, he announced that the sequels would be filmed in New Zealand, with
performance capture filming to take place in 2014. An agreement with the
New Zealand government required at least one world premiere to be held in
Wellington and at least
NZ$500 million (roughly US$410 million) to be spent on production activity in New Zealand, including live-action filming and
visual effects. The government announced it would raise its baseline tax rebate for filmmaking from 15% to 20%, with 25% available to international productions in some cases. By February 2016, production of the sequels was scheduled to begin that April. New crew members for the sequels included cinematographer
Russell Carpenter, who worked with Cameron on
True Lies (1994) and
Titanic (1997), and art director Aashrita Kamath. Kirk Krack, founder of
Performance Freediving International, worked as a
free-diving trainer for the cast and crew for the underwater scenes. On July 31, 2017, it was announced that the New Zealand-based visual effects studio
Weta Digital had commenced work on the
Avatar sequels. In a 2023 interview, Cameron announced that the film would feature a new
Na'vi clan, called the "Ash people", who would be antagonists in the film. On August 9, 2024, the title of the film was announced by Cameron at the
D23 Disney fan convention. Cameron said "fire" refers to hatred, anger and violence, while "ash" refers to grief and loss.
Writing Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver were originally announced as Cameron's co-writers. It was later announced that Jaffa, Silver,
Josh Friedman, and
Shane Salerno all played a role in the writing process for all the films before being assigned to finish separate scripts. According to Cameron,
Fire and Ash was split from
Avatar: The Way of Water due to an excessive amount of material. He introduced the Mangkwan, or "Ash People"—a ruthless, warmongering clan of Na'vi inspired by the
Baining people of
Papua New Guinea—because he wanted the film series to move beyond the paradigm of "all humans are bad, all Na'vi are good". He said the nomadic merchant Wind Traders were inspired by camel caravans of the
Spice Road during the Middle Ages. After the 2022
Uvalde school shooting in
Texas, Cameron rewrote parts of
Fire and Ash to avoid glorifying gun violence and "fetishizing" assault weapons. Originally, the Metkayina decided to use guns to defend the Tulkun, but Cameron changed the script, choosing to have the clan reject firearms instead. Cameron said he did not want guns to "contaminate" the Na'vi culture. After audiences responded positively to the Tulkun character Payakan in
The Way of Water, Cameron made changes to
Fire and Ash so he would be featured more prominently in the story.
Casting When they were cast for
Avatar,
Sam Worthington and
Zoe Saldaña had signed on for future sequels. In August 2017, in an interview with
Empire, Cameron announced that
Stephen Lang would not only be returning in all four sequels but he would also be the main antagonist in all four films. In August 2017,
Matt Gerald had officially signed on to portray his first film's role, Corporal Lyle Wainfleet, in all upcoming sequels. On January 25, 2018,
Dileep Rao was confirmed to return as Dr. Max Patel. In June 2017,
Oona Chaplin joined the cast as Varang, "a strong and vibrant central character who spans the entire saga of the sequels" starting with
Fire and Ash.
Eiza González also auditioned for Chaplin's role. On casting the relatively unknown Chaplin, Cameron explained, "There was something [Chaplin] just locked into. There's a sexuality; there's a dominating psychology, and there's a lot of fury. There are a lot of layers to what she's doing there and the forces that are driving her. Oona was able to move fluidly back and forth between those in a way that I wasn't seeing with the others." In April 2018,
David Thewlis announced his involvement in the franchise, stating that he would be featured in three of the four sequels, later stating in January 2020 that his character was a Na'vi. This led to Thewlis being largely reported as part of the cast of
The Way of Water. However, he stated in June 2020 that the reports were wrong, and that he would actually be a part of
Fire and Ash up to
5. On November 14, 2018, Cameron announced filming with the principal performance capture cast had been completed. Most filming on the fourth and fifth films will begin after
wrapping the post-production on the first two sequels. On March 17, 2020, Landau announced that filming in New Zealand had been postponed indefinitely in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic. He also confirmed that production would remain in Los Angeles. However, work on visual effects continued at
Wētā FX in
Wellington. In early May, health and safety production protocols had been endorsed by the New Zealand government, allowing filming to resume in the country. On May 31, part of the
Avatar crew, including Cameron, were granted entry into New Zealand under a special visa category for border exemptions for foreigners deemed essential to a project of "significant economic value". On June 1, 2020, Landau posted a picture of himself and Cameron on
Instagram, showing that they had returned to New Zealand to resume filming. After their arrival, all 55 crew members who had traveled to New Zealand started a 2-week government-supervised isolation period at a hotel in Wellington before they would resume filming. This would make
Avatar: The Way of Water and
Avatar: Fire and Ash the first major Hollywood blockbusters to resume production after postponing filming due to the pandemic. In September 2020, Cameron announced that 95% of
Avatar: Fire and Ash had been completed. Filming wrapped in December 2020. Following the December 2022 release of
The Way of Water, Cameron decided to partially rewrite
Fire and Ash to incorporate scenes involving the creature Toruk, which was introduced in
Avatar. Cameron also expanded the role of the whale-like character Payakan after he proved popular in
The Way of Water. In February 2024, Cameron said principal photography was essentially completed, and that the crew was shooting
pick-ups for
Fire and Ash. ==Music==