Don’t you dare start a discourse about no one wanting Avatar 3. Everyone made their case about Avatar’s “cultural impact” in the lead up to 2022’s The Way of Water, then James Cameron dropped his rebuttal, three hours of gorgeous, rip-roaring water action (that arrived to the tune $2.3 billion worldwide). We can let Avatar 3, now subtitled Fire and Ash, wash over us. Or maybe burn?

James Cameron was on hand at the 2024 D23 Expo on Friday to preach the good word on Avatar, and update fans who know he takes way too long to finish these things. Yes, the third Avatar movie is on target to hit its current release date of Dec. 19, 2025. And yes, Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 are still very much in development (though there were no real updates out of the panel). The Na’vi are here to stay, haters be damned.

Avatar: Fire and Ash finds most of The Way of Water cast back for another dip in the seas of Pandora. Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, and Stephen Lang, plus all the kids who portrayed the Na’vi kids. Expect a few new additions: David Thewlis (the Harry Potter films) is set to pop up as a new Na’vi, while Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh will appear in human form as a new scientist.

A few concept images were shown during Cameron’s D23 panel and, well, confirmed: fire AND ash.

Little else is known about the plot of Avatar: Fire and Ash , though Cameron teased at D23 that he’ll continue to traverse Pandora’s many biomes in order to meet new clans of Na’vi. But good news for fans of riding tulkuns under the ocean: The infamous production pic of Kate Winslet wearing a cape while freediving at the bottom of a pool is actually motion-capture work for the new movie. And people wonder why we need more Avatar movies?