Michelle Yeoh‘s journey to Pandora is happening later than expected.
“Avatar” filmmaker James Cameron has revealed that Yeoh’s character, scientist Dr. Karina Mogue, will not appear in the upcoming third installment, officially titled “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
“Michelle Yeoh won’t be in 3. She’s in 4 and 5,” Cameron told Entertainment Weekly at Disney’s D23 convention. “So that got a little bit misreported.”
In 2021, the late producer Jon Landau posted a photo of Yeoh on the set of the third “Avatar” film, suggesting that Yeoh would appear in that entry. (Cameron shot “Fire and Ash” and parts of “Avatar 4” concurrently with 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water.”)
“She will be coming in soon to do her part, which is an interesting, fun character,” Cameron explained to EW. “I mean, we’re getting ahead of ourselves now. This whole thing has been planned for years and years. The scripts were all written years ago, through the end of movie 5. So 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.”
“We love Michelle,” the director added. “She was always a movie star, but she’s blown up into a huge, huge phenomenon. I look forward to working there.”
At the D23 expo on Aug. 9, Cameron and “Avatar” stars Zoe Saldaña and Sam Worthington revealed the official title for the third “Avatar” installment, as well as showcased some concept art from the film.
“You’ll see a lot more Pandora that you never saw before,” Cameron told the audience. “It’s an insane adventure and a feast for the eyes, but it’s also got very high emotional stakes, more than ever before.”
The third entry is currently set to open in theaters on Dec. 19, 2025, followed by “Avatar 4” on Dec. 21, 2029, and “Avatar 5” on Dec. 19, 2031.
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