Michelle Yeoh's flight to Pandora is later than expected.
“Avatar” director James Cameron has revealed that Yeoh's character, scientist Dr. Carina Mogg, will not appear in the upcoming third installment, titled “Avatar: Fire and Ashes.”
“Michelle Yeoh won't be in the third film. She'll be in the fourth and fifth. So that was reported a little bit wrong,” Cameron told Entertainment Weekly at Disney's D23 conference.
In 2021, the late producer John Landau posted a photo of Leo on the set of the third “Avatar” film, suggesting that Leo would appear in that installment. (Cameron shot “Fire and Ashes” and parts of “Avatar 4” concurrently with 2022's “Avatar: The Way of Water.”)
“She’s coming in soon, and she’s a fun, interesting character,” Cameron explained to EW. “I mean, we’re kind of anticipating things right now. This whole thing has been planned for years and years. All the scripts were written years ago, right up until the end of the fifth movie. So we were working on parts of the fourth movie even as we went along, mostly because we had this young crew. We had to shoot them all while they were still young.”
“We love Michelle, she's always been a movie star, but she's turned into a huge phenomenon. I'm looking forward to working there,” the director added.
At the D23 Expo on August 9, Cameron and “Avatar” stars Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington revealed the official title for the third “Avatar” installment, as well as showing off some concept art from the film.
“You’re going to see a lot of Pandora that you’ve never seen before,” Cameron told the audience. “It’s a crazy adventure and a feast for the eyes, but it also has very high emotional stakes, more than ever before.”
The third part of the film is currently scheduled to be released in theaters on December 19, 2025, followed by “Avatar 4” on December 21, 2029, and “Avatar 5” on December 19, 2031.
