James Cameron Confirms You Will not See Michelle Yeoh in Avatar Till 2029 at Least

Even earlier than her Oscar win for The whole lot In all places All at As soon as, we had been within the midst of a Michelle Yeoh boom time. Fortunate for us, that’s not going to finish anytime quickly. Whereas the primary Wicked is hitting theaters this fall, Star Trek: Section 31 is arriving on Paramount+ early subsequent yr, and Prime Video’s Blade Runner 2099 is now in manufacturing, one other high-profile Yeoh undertaking—her involvement in James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar franchise—is additional away than we thought.

That’s as a result of Yeoh’s character isn’t really going to seem within the third movie, whose title was not too long ago confirmed as Avatar: Fire and Ash. She’ll as an alternative debut within the fourth movie, which is due in 2029—a full decade after her casting as a scientist named Dr. Karina Mogue was introduced back in 2019.

This tidbit was confirmed by at least James Cameron himself, who informed Entertainment Weekly on the D23 conference that Yeoh will not be partly three—”that received slightly bit misreported”—although she’s going to certainly be in elements 4 and 5.

“She will likely be coming in quickly to do her half, which is an fascinating, enjoyable character,” Cameron mentioned. “I imply, we’re getting forward of ourselves now. This complete factor has been deliberate for years and years. The scripts had been all written years in the past, via the top of film 5. So we’ve been engaged on elements of 4 at the same time as we go alongside, largely as a result of we’ve received this younger forged. We needed to shoot all of them whereas they had been nonetheless younger.”

The EW article notes {that a} broadly circulated photograph of Yeoh on set with Cameron was taken whereas Avatar was filming its second and third entries again to again, together with the primary a part of the fourth, exactly due to these quickly growing older younger stars. However although followers received’t see Yeoh in Fireplace and Ash, Cameron is aware of it’ll be well worth the wait to see her in Avatar‘s world: “We love Michelle … She was all the time a film star, however she’s blown up into an enormous, big phenomenon.”

Avatar: Fireplace and Ash opens December 19, 2025.

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