Avatar 3 Casts Game of Thrones Alum Oona Chaplin as Fire Na'Vi Leader

Avatar: The Way of Water is ruling the box office charts, all but sealing the fate of Avatar 5. James Cameron’s Na’vi franchise plans to extend to a fifth installment, but it all hinges on the success of Avatar 2. With the way the film reached $2 billion with little effort, we’d bet Avatar 5 is in the bag.

Avatar 5 is years away, but Avatar 3 is not. Unlike Avatar 2, we won’t have to wait a decade for the next film. Avatar 3 will be out next year, and it’s going to be fire. Literally.

Avatar producer Jon Landau confirmed that Avatar 3 will feature “fire” Na’vi called the Ash People, an “aggressive, volcanic race.” Their leader is Varang, who will be played by Oona Chaplin, a Game of Thrones alum and the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin.

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Chaplin joins the star-packed cast, which includes Zoe Saldana as Neytiri, Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, Sigourney Weaver as Kiri, and Kate Winslet as Ronal. But unlike the rest of the Na’vi cast, Chaplin is theorized to play another villain, or at least an antagonistic character, based on how Landau explained the introduction of the fire Na’vi.

“There are good humans and there are bad humans,” Landau said to Empire Magazine. “It’s the same thing on the Na’vi side. Oftentimes, people don’t see themselves as bad. What is the root cause of how they evolve into what we perceive as bad? Maybe there are other factors there that we aren’t aware of.”

We’ve seen Na’vi fight avatars in Avatar 2, but by the looks of it, Avatar 3 will show indigenous Na’vi fighting indigenous Na’vi. And we can’t wait.

Avatar 3 will be released in cinemas on December 20, 2024.