Mark Ruffalo isn’t buying into James Cameron’s plea to Congress to reconsider the Netflix-Warner Bros deal. Cameron wrote a letter to Senator Mike Lee, who’s on the antitrust committee, claiming that if Netflix bought Warner Brothers, it would destroy the film industry. But Ruffalo questions whether Cameron would have a different viewpoint if Paramount were buying WB. “So… the next question to Mr Cameron should be this…’Are you also against the monopolization that a Paramount acquisition would create? Or is it just that of Netflix?’,” Ruffalo shared on Threads, alongside a link to an article about Cameron’s letter. “I think the answer would be very interesting for the film community to hear and one that should be asked immediately. Is Mike Lee against the Paramount sale as well? Is he as concerned about that as he is the Netflix sale?”
Ted Sarandos, the co-CEO of Netflix, also had some words for Cameron as well. “I respect Mr. Cameron enormously and I love his work. But his letter to you knowingly misrepresents ourposition and commitment to the theatrical release of Warner Bros. films,” Sarandos began. He then explains that he met with both Cameron and Lee and reiterated his promise of a 45-day distribution window. He also claimed that if Paramount Skydance bought Warner Bros instead of Netflix, it would cut about $16 billion from the film industry to offset the purchase. Right now, Paramount Skydance is still in its 7-day window of discussion with Warner Bros to try to make another offer, and shareholders still have to vote to approve the deal in March. But right now, it seems like the only ones happy with the current deal are Netflix.
Costume designers for The Studio and One Battle After Another took home top awards at last night’s Costume Designers Guild Awards, adding to their awards-season momentum.
Kameron Lennox and Tyler Kinney won the award for Excellence in Contemporary Television for The Studio’s penultimate episode, “CinemaCon.” The story features studio head Matt Remick, played by Seth Rogen, bringing his team to Las Vegas to present their studio slate, until a drug-fueled party derails the plan.
Colleen Atwood and Bryan Roberts Kopp received the prize for Excellence in Contemporary Film for Paul Thomas Anderson’s action-thriller One Battle After Another, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Actress Kate Hudson was also honored at the ceremony, winning the guild’s Spotlight Award for her career excellence in acting and awareness of the importance of costume design.
“Clothes are one of my great loves, but more than that, the artists who create them are,” Hudson said. “I look at these costumes created throughout the years, and they take my breath away.”
Kate Hudson with her Spotlight Award at the Costume Designers Guild AwardsCredit: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Costume Designers Guild
The awards show, held at The Ebell on Wilshire and hosted by actress Courtney Hope, spotlighted costume designers Michelle Cole, who accepted the Career Achievement Award, James Cameron, who won the Distinguished Collaborator Award, and Teyana Taylor, who received the Vanguard Spotlight Award, celebrating trailblazers in costume making.
“Costume design has always been bigger than fashion in my life; it’s storytelling,” Taylor said. “Before a character ever speaks, what they wear is already telling you who they are; their strength, their vulnerability, their journey.”
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The annual event celebrates excellence in costume design across movies, television and short films. This year’s ceremony marked the event’s 28th edition since its founding in 1998.
The awards show was sponsored by Italian fashion house Bvlgari, which unveiled a new edition of the Guild’s iconic statuette, The Adrian, as part of a global partnership with the Costume Designers Guild.
Kate Hudson and Janelle Monáe onstageCredit: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Costume Designers Guild
Apple TV’s The Studio and Warner Bros.’ One Battle After Another extended their awards-season winning streaks with victories last night.
The Studio won three awards at this year’s Golden Globes, including Best Musical or Comedy TV Series, Actor in a Musical or Comedy TV Series and Female Actor in a Supporting Role.
At the Critics’ Choice Awards, the series won Best Comedy Series, while Seth Rogen took home Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance as Matt Remick and Ike Barinholtz earned Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as studio executive Sal Saperstein.
One Battle After Another dominated the Golden Globes, winning four awards, including Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and Screenplay, while Paul Thomas Anderson won Best Director and Teyana Taylor took home Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role.
The film, which depicts Leonardo DiCaprio as a washed-up revolutionary searching for his daughter, took home three Critics’ Choice Awards, including Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay.
Teyana Taylor accepts the Vanguard Spotlight Award onstageCredit: Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Costume Designers Guild
Here’s the complete list of winners at last night’s ceremony:
Excellence in Contemporary Film
One Battle After Another – Colleen Atwood, Costume Designer, CDG & Bryan Roberts Kopp, Assistant Costume Designer, CDG
Disney’s “Zootopia 2” again led the China box office for the Feb. 6–8 weekend, taking RMB25.9 million ($3.6 million) and lifting its cumulative total to RMB4.5 billion ($634.1 million), according to Artisan Gateway. The market continued to soften in the days immediately ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday frame, with holdovers accounting for all […]
Academy Award-winning film director James Cameron opened up about what led him and his family to move to New Zealand permanently.
The Titanic director said he had promised his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, that they would move to New Zealand at some point in his career during an appearance on In Depth with Graham Besinger.
Cameron, 71, said he “just really fell in love” with New Zealand when he first visited the country in 1994.
“When Suzy and I were first getting serious, she said, ‘Fine, no problem.’ She was game,” Cameron said of the move. “Now, later, we have children, we have a family, we’ve got roots in Malibu and Santa Barbara, that conversation had to be amended slightly, but we did say after Avatar, let’s make this happen.”
The couple shares three daughters: Claire, 23, Quinn, 21, and Elizabeth, 18. Cameron also shares another daughter, Josephine, 31, with his ex-wife, actor Linda Hamilton.
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The Canadian filmmaker explained that the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020 and led to travel restrictions and lockdowns, said New Zealand’s handling of the virus compared to the United States’ response gave him the push he needed.
“New Zealand had eliminated the virus completely. They actually eliminated the virus twice. The third time, when it showed up in a mutated form, it broke through. But fortunately, they already had a 98 per cent vaccination rate,” Cameron said.
“This is why I love New Zealand,” he continued. “People there are, for the most part, sane as opposed to the United States, where you had a 62 per cent vaccination rate, and that’s going down — going the wrong direction.”
James Cameron celebrates ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ at Canadian premiere
He asked: “A place that believes in science and is sane, and where people can work together cohesively to a common goal? Or a place where everybody’s at each other’s throats, extremely polarized, turning its back on science and basically would be in utter disarray if another pandemic appears?”
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Besinger said that the United States is a “fantastic place to live” but did note that New Zealand is “stunningly beautiful.”
“I’m not there for scenery, I’m there for the sanity,” Cameron clarified.
Cameron, a Canadian born in Kapuskasing, Ont., told New Zealand news outlet Stuff that he intended to make his farm in South Wairarapa his family’s primary residence. The film director has owned the 1,000-hectare dairy farm since 2012.
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Cameron has long been vocal about his plans and said that Trump’s current presidency, which he described as “horrifying” and “like watching a car crash over and over again,” acted as a recent catalyst.
“I see it as a turn away from everything decent,” he said of the Trump administration. “America doesn’t stand for anything if it doesn’t stand for what it has historically stood for. It becomes a hollow idea, and I think they’re hollowing it out as fast as they can for their own benefit.”
While Cameron says he doesn’t necessarily feel any safer in New Zealand than in the U.S., he prefers the country’s reporting style, saying it provides a welcome escape from America’s Trump-heavy news cycle.
“There’s something nice about the New Zealand outlets — at least they’ll put it [Trump stories] on page three. … I just don’t want to see that guy’s face any more, on the front page of the paper,” he explained.
Titanic sub disaster: James Cameron says lack of ‘discipline’ led to implosion
Cameron isn’t the first celebrity to move abroad since Trump took office again.
“Moved here on January 15 and it’s been pretty wonderful, I have to say. The people are so loving and so kind, so welcoming. And I’m very grateful,” O’Donnell said.
O’Donnell, 63, said she’s currently in the process of getting her Irish citizenship and that she has Irish grandparents.
“I miss my other kids. I miss my friends. I miss many things about life there at home and I’m trying to find a home here in this beautiful country and when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that’s when we will consider coming back,” she said.
Everyone wants Michelle Yeoh involved in their movies, and who could blame them? She’s the originator of the “Madame Morrible, MM, flip it around, Wicked Witch!” who knows what else her mind could come up with on another movie set. James Cameron has been hoping to bring Yeoh onto Pandora and has found the perfect opportunity to bring her on board for Avatar 4, if there is one. “Michelle is definitely going to be in 4, if we make 4,” Cameron shares to TVBS News, per People. He already has a vision in store for her: she would be a Na’vi named Paktuelat, but didn’t specify what tribe she would be a part of. Cameron has already conquered land, sea, and fire in the world of Pandora, but maybe there’s a tribe of Na’vi living underground. The official X account for the Avatar films previously stated that Yeoh would play a character named Dr. Karina Mogue. But it might be possible that Cameron thought of another role for her, or maybe she transforms into a Na’vi, like how Jake Sully did in the first film.
Despite making over $1 billion globally, Cameron is still concerned about whether a fourth film would be approved by Disney. “So, here’s the thing: the movie industry is depressed right now. Avatar 3 cost a lot of money. We have to do well in order to continue. We have to do well, andwe need to figure out how to make Avatar movies more inexpensively in order to continue,” he explains. Either way, maybe Yeoh can at least act out her part in the press conference Cameron promises to host if the fourth and fifth movies don’t get made.
First, our phrasing of the question was specifically chosen: “If you were traveling by yourself as a second-class passenger on Titanic when it hit an iceberg, what would you have done?”
“Traveling by yourself” because a man traveling with his family is presumably going to prioritize their survival instead of his own. And “second class” because we all know from watching Cameron’s film that some third-class passengers found themselves trapped below decks and were pretty much doomed, while first-class passengers had the best shot at securing an easy seat on the lifeboats (even though Second Officer Charles Lightoller mistakenly took the captain’s order of “women and children first” to mean “women and children only,” which resulted in some boats not being filled to capacity).
Turns out, Cameron has played this game himself.
Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio and James Cameron on the set of ‘Titanic.’
20th Century Fox Film Corp./Courtesy Everett Collection
“I think there were interesting ways to what-if or second-guess the whole thing,” Cameron says. “One I like to play with my Titanic experts is — with what we know now, and if you had the captain’s ear — how could you save everybody? The other is: What if you’re a time traveler, you go back and want to experience the sinking, and your little time-travel thing that gets you back fails, and you’re like, ‘Oh f–k, I’m really on the ship, I’ve got to get off it.’”
Assuming you couldn’t get a seat on a lifeboat the normal way, Cameron says that your best move would be to stand on the side of the Titanic and wait for a lifeboat to launch during the early part of the evacuation. Then you jump off the Titanic and swim to the newly launched boat. As long as the boat wasn’t too far away, you’d survive the brief plunge into the 28-degree water — and the lifeboat passengers would likely pull you aboard given that people would be watching from the rails of the ship.
“Most people wouldn’t have had the courage to jump into the water,” Cameron says. “They couldn’t quite believe that the ship was really going to sink. But if you knew for sure it was going to sink and you weren’t on a lifeboat, you jump in the water next to the boat the second it casts off. Once they rowed away, you were screwed. Are they going to let you drown when Titanic is still there and everybody is watching? No, they’d pull you in, and the officers would go, ‘Well, f–k, there’s nothing I can do about that.’ Boat four would be a good one for this.”
In the 1997 film, of course, Cameron’s hero, Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), reasons the best move is to stay on the ship as long as possible. Which made sense given the amount of information he had at the time — not knowing rescue from another ship wouldn’t arrive until roughly two hours after Titanic sank. An even better move would have been for Rose (Kate Winslet) to stay on the lifeboat, giving Jack a better shot at survival on that floating door. But that’s all part of the movie’s appeal; there’s a play-along factor where the audience can ask themselves what they would have done at various turning points.
Cameron’s latest, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is now in theaters.
James Cameron made waves when he called Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer a “moral cop-out” for not depicting the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
So what does he think of the ending of Netflix‘s A House of Dynamite, which — spoilers follow — stops just shy of showing potential nuclear destruction in America?
The riveting thriller’s ending divided viewers when it was released in October, with some feeling the film pulled a punch by wrapping on a cliffhanger, leaving the audience unsure if a rogue ICBM destroyed Chicago, and how the film’s president (Idris Elba) responded.
A House of Dynamite was directed by Kathryn Bigelow — Cameron’s friend, former spouse and frequent collaborator — and the Avatar filmmaker tells TheHollywood Reporter that he had dinner with Bigelow just a few weeks ago and they discussed the ending.
“I said to her, ‘I utterly defend that ending,’” he says. “It’s really the only possible ending. You don’t get to the end of [the classic short story] ‘The Lady or the Tiger?‘ and know what’s behind which door.”
Continued Cameron: “But that’s not even really the point. The point is: From the moment the scenerio began at minute zero when the missile was launched and detected, the outcome already sucked. There was no good outcome, and the movie spent two hours showing you there is no good outcome. We cannot countenance these weapons existing at all. And it all boils down to one guy in the American system, the president, who is the only person allowed to launch a nuclear strike, either offensively or defensively, and the lives of every person on the planet revolve around that one person. That’s the world we live in and we need to remember that when we vote next time.”
Concluded the filmmaker: “So the end of that movie was the only way that movie could have ended because — as the computer says at the end of War Games — ‘the only way to win is not to play.’”
Cameron has used his work to warn about the threat of nuclear war going back to his 1984 feature debut, The Terminator. His films Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Abyss and True Lies also revolved around nuclear threats.
The director has obtained the rights to the Charles Pellegrino’s book Ghosts of Hiroshima, which chronicles the true story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who in 1945 survived the nuclear blasts at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Cameron promised Yamaguchi on his deathbed in 2010 that he’d make the film.
On the subject of Oppenheimer, Cameron previously told Deadline, “it’s interesting what he stayed away from. Look, I love the filmmaking, but I did feel that it was a bit of a moral cop out. Because it’s not like Oppenheimer didn’t know the effects [of the bomb]. He’s got one brief scene in the film where we see — and I don’t like to criticize another filmmaker’s film – but there’s only one brief moment where he sees some charred bodies in the audience and then the film goes on to show how it deeply moved him. But I felt that it dodged the subject. I don’t know whether the studio or Chris felt that that was a third rail that they didn’t want to touch, but I want to go straight at the third rail. I’m just stupid that way.”
James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” continued to dominate the Korean box office over the Dec. 26–28 frame, grossing $8.6 million from more than 1 million admissions, according to KOBIS, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council. The film has now amassed $32.5 million.
“Zootopia 2” remained a powerful No. 2, adding $3 million for the weekend and lifting its cumulative total to $50.3 million. The sequel has now crossed 7.4 million admissions, cementing its status as one of 2025’s top-performing imported animated releases.
Opening in third place was the South Korean romantic drama “Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight,” which debuted with $1.2 million. Directed by Kim Hye-young and based on the novel by Ichijo Misaki, the film stars Choo Young-woo and Shin Si-ah in a bittersweet high-school romance centered on a girl with anterograde amnesia whose memories reset each morning. The film has earned $2.5 million in its first five days.
Japanese animated release “Crayon Shinchan the Movie: Super Hot! The Spicy Kasukabe Dancers” followed in fourth, grossing $773,000 for a running total of $1.8 million.
Local family title “Pororo the Movie: Sweet Castle Adventure” placed fifth, adding $147,000 to reach $1.2 million. Comedy-drama “The People Upstairs” continued its steady run in sixth, pushing its cumulative haul to $3.6 million. Directed by Ha Jung-woo and starring Gong Hyo-jin, Kim Dong-wook, Lee Ha-nee and Ha Jung-woo himself, the film follows a downstairs couple driven to exhaustion by constant noise from their upstairs neighbours. A tense dinner meant to resolve the issue quickly unravels into an evening of sharp confessions and shifting dynamics.
Stephen King adaptation “The Life of Chuck” opened in seventh with $43,642, while “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” added $38,622, bringing its total to $1.5 million.
Rounding out the chart were Japanese anthology features “Tatsuki Fujimoto 17–26 Part-1” and “Tatsuki Fujimoto 17–26 Part-2,” which earned $44,274 and $44,473 respectively.
The top 10 films collectively grossed $14.02 million over the Dec. 26–28 weekend, slightly down from last weekend’s $15.2 million.
Avatar Fire and Ash Box Office Collection Day 10: James Cameron’s movie surpasses THESE two sci-fi m…
The Avatar movies continue to be profitable long after their theatrical debuts, and they often do better internationally than just domestically (Fire & Ash made $57.6M in China, somewhat more than The Way of Water’s opening weekend).
Avatar Fire and Ash Box Office Collection Day 10: James Cameron appears to be on a roll. The third instalment of his Avatar franchise, Avatar: Fire & Ash, raked in $64 million over the Christmas weekend, thereby continuing its run as the top-grossing movie, and that amount does not include the $88 million that has already been collected since last Thursday. So, Avatar 3 is now officially more successful than the other two sci-fi masterpieces- Interstellar and Dune: Part Two.
The highest-grossing science fiction films of all time are still the original Avatar movie and Avatar: The Way of Water. This could see Fire & Ash claiming the number one position in the box office for the year 2026 and beyond because its predecessors had the same 7-week consecutive reign and a well-deserved win since the film received a lot of love from the fans.
Avatar Fire and Ash box office collection day 10
The overall collection of Avatar: Fire and Ash are still very good. The movie has collected around Rs 137.65 crore net within ten days. The extraordinary collections of the last few days stood as a reason to give a strong opening to this movie, because of which, despite a hold pace witnessed in the second week, the overall collections of this movie can be considered satisfactory. As far as the presence of the audience and occupancy is concerned, the overall English occupancy of the film on Sunday was calculated at 48.31, with morning shows at 28.42%, afternoon shows at 62.63%, and further increasing the evening shows at 68.92% and night shows at 33.27%
Avatar 3 worldwide collection
The science fiction epic Avatar: Fire and Ash, directed by James Cameron, is still doing well at the box office worldwide. Through the second weekend, the third instalment in the popular Avatar trilogy has surpassed $750 million globally and is approaching the coveted billion-dollar club.
Can Avatar Fire and Ash Pass $1B?
It’s really likely. The Avatar movies continue to be profitable long after their theatrical debuts, and they often do better internationally than just domestically (Fire & Ash made $57.6M in China, somewhat more than The Way of Water’s opening weekend). Also, they continue to accelerate throughout the holidays for a considerable period of time; as of Christmas, Fire & Ash had reached the $500 million milestone.
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(CNN) — Moviegoers flocked to theaters for Disney’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” on the last weekend of the year, solidifying the sci-fi adventure film’s place as one of the biggest blockbusters of 2025.
The third installment of director James Cameron’s “Avatar” films raked in another $64 million domestically Friday through Sunday, and roughly $181.2 million internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $760.4 million.
“Fire and Ash” is the No. 6 highest-grossing film worldwide this year, having overtaken popular releases like Warner Bros. Discovery’s “Superman” and Sony Pictures’ “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” in just 10 days.
Warner Bros. Discovery is the parent company of CNN.
The big-budget “Avatar” franchise, which includes films from 2009 and 2022, has proved it can still draw large audiences to theaters with its spectacular visual effects.“Fire and Ash” has earned $96 million globally on IMAX and is expected to become IMAX’s biggest Hollywood release of the year, according to Disney.
“Premium formats (are) a huge factor for ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash,’ despite the fact that consumers are price-sensitive,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore.
Audiences were also drawn to a diverse slate of movies this weekend. Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” which opened on Thanksgiving, finished No. 2 at the box office with $20 million, a 35% jump from last weekend, according to Comscore. “Zootopia 2” has grossed $1.4 billion worldwide — the second-highest-grossing movie of the year.
“(‘Zootopia 2’) gets the Most Valuable Player award for the holiday season,” said Dergarabedian, who noted that PG-rated movies earned $2.87 billion this year, while outperformingPG-13 movies.
At No. 3 was A24’s “Marty Supreme” — the sports comedy-drama starring Timothée Chalamet — which grossed $17.5 million amid a surge of attention on social media. It was driven by a male-dominated “Marty Army,” according to A24, with one-third of the movie’s audience being under 25 years old.
A24’s “Marty Supreme,” a ping-pong sports drama, attracted young audiences to theaters. Credit: A24 via CNN Newsource
After opening in six theaters last weekend in New York City and Los Angeles, “Marty Supreme” rode a wave of Oscar and online buzz to propel it to box office success in over 2,600 theaters, according to Shawn Robbins, director of movie analytics at Fandango and owner of Box Office Theory.
“(A24) catered to the old and new mindsets of marketing a movie like this around the holidays, knowing that it would be an award season player,” he said.
Lionsgate Films’ “The Housemaid,” which opened last weekend, was No. 4 this weekend at $15.4 million. It was followed by Sony Pictures’ “Anaconda” ($14.5 million), a reboot of the 1997 movie.
Angel Studios’ “David” ($12.69 million) finished sixth, ahead of Paramount’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” ($11 million). Focus Features’ “Song Sung Blue” opened this weekend at No. 8 with $7.6 million.
This was the best Christmas week for the box office since 2020, according to Robbins.
“To have most of these seven major releases opening around Christmas do relatively well, and you either meet or exceed expectations — that has not happened very much in the post-Covid era,” Robbins said.
Sony’s “Anaconda,” a comedic remake of the 1997 horror flick, finished fifth overall. Credit: Matt Grace / Sony Pictures Entertainment via CNN Newsource
The overall domestic box office has grossed $8.76 billion in earnings in 2025, according to Comscore data. That’s up 1.56% from last year but still behind 2023, the only post-pandemic year to boast $9 billion in earnings.
Box office numbers are still well behind 2019, when domestic earnings totaled more than $11 billion.
But successful December films could carry over into a strong start for 2026, according to Dergarabedian, who estimates another $100 million can be added by the end of the year.
Dergarabedian said a strong release slate for movies next year could give theaters their best year since the pandemic.
Some of next year’s biggest movies include Universal Pictures’ “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” (April 3) and “Disclosure Day” (June 12), as well as Disney’s “Toy Story 5” (June 19). “Avengers: Doomsday” and Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Dune: Part Three” are both slated for December 18.
We spent all of 2025 following Billie Eilish around on the HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR. Now, we get to relive all our favorite moments from tour on the big screen…in 3D? HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR (LIVE IN 3D) is no longer a hopeful wish from fans, but a real documentary of one of the biggest tours of the year. Here’s everything we know about Billie’s new documentary, including the release date and how you can watch.
Image Source: Courtesy of Paramount
The Trailer
Most importantly, we have a full-length trailer already. Billie announced the new documentary at her last HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR stop in San Francisco a few months ago, and let fans in the crowd get a first look at the trailer. From what we can tell, the documentary (yes, it’s filmed in 3D!) will include live clips from her shows in Manchester along with some behind-the-scenes shots from Billie and her crew on the road and backstage.
Were you at the shows in Manchester? Will we see you in the documentary?
The Director(s)!
Every Billie Eilish fan knows that she directs all of her music videos, which means it’s only fitting that she plays a role in directing this 3D film as well. She’ll be co-directing with iconic director James Cameron. You may know him from some of your favorite movies like Titanic and Avatar. If that gives you any idea of the scale and production of Billie’s new documentary…you’re in for a treat! We are looking forward to seeing how the two creatives collaborate, especially for the exciting 3D moments.
This might just be the most exciting project Billie has ever been a part of, and we’re so proud of her!
Image Source: HENRY HWU @HENRYHWU
The Release Date
Okay, we’re finally getting to the key details. The release date! Lock it in, honeybees. HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR (LIVE IN 3D) releases on March 20, 2026. Now is the time to start planning with your fellow Billie friends. What will you wear? Will you be traveling to see the documentary? How many tickets will you be buying? Our fangirl theories have been cooking up, and we predict that the film will be available to stream after its release date. Given the fact that Paramount is producing the film, we can only cross our fingers that it’ll be available to stream on Paramount+ sometime next year!
Although we don’t know any information about how to actually purchase the tickets yet, we hope to know more soon in the following months. In the meantime, get your hands on this special HIT ME HARD AND SOFTgift card, exclusively to see the new film with your friends and family.
Are you just as excited as we are for HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR (LIVE IN 3D)? Which song from the tour are you most excited to re-live again? Is it ‘Guess’ or ‘WILDFLOWER?’ Let us know down in the comments or by buzzing with us about all things Billie Eilish on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
Avatar: Fire and Ash star Trinity Bliss is one of only a few people who’s able to say that she grew up inside the imagination of James Cameron.
In 2017, the filmmaker cast seven-year-old Bliss to play Tuk, the youngest member of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri’s (Zoe Saldaña) family. Her performance-capture role then wrapped when she was nine years old, but additional photography allowed her to return to her character plenty of times in the intervening years, including just a handful of months ago. When one says that the Thousand Oaks native grew up on the Manhattan Beach set of Avatar: The Way of Water and Avatar: Fire and Ash, it is by no means a figurative statement.
“It’s funny because I’m finally Tuk’s height [at 16]. She’s 5’7’’ or 5’8’’ as a nine-year-old Na’vi. In the hair and makeup room on set, all of us kids who were growing up would mark our heights on this wall. I went from being at the bottom and so separated from everybody else to now being one of the tallest on the wall during [additional photography],” Bliss tells The Hollywood Reporter.
With Tuk being the youngest sibling and only biological daughter of Jake and Neytiri, she’s understandably treated with kid gloves. Her life has routinely been threatened by the Sullys’ adversaries, be it Quaritch (Stephen Lang) and/or Oona Chaplin’s new Fire and Ash baddie, Varang. When Chaplin wasn’t holding Tuk captive, she would help Bliss catch up on schoolwork or hone her skills as a budding singer-songwriter. Like a lot of Gen Z kids, Bliss can do a little bit of everything.
“Oona was very much not villainous off camera. We would make friendship bracelets together, or we’d play the guitar and ukulele together,” Bliss recalls. “She even helped me make a diorama for school when I was behind on work.”
Before being abducted in the third act by Quaritch and Varang, Tuk finally had enough of being told to sit tight while everyone else got to be heroes. Sensing her adopted sister, Kiri (Sigourney “Sig” Weaver), and brother-like figure, Spider (Jack Champion), needing help, she connects to the Spirit Tree so she can assist their effort to summon aid from Eywa, the All-Mother of Pandora.
“Tuk finally just realizes, ‘I’m going to ask for forgiveness, not permission. I can’t stay back and wonder if my family is going to be okay. I’m a fighter too, and they shouldn’t underestimate me,’” Bliss says. “That whole mental process she goes through before she acts is part of her very core, and it’s planting the seed for where she’s going to go in [Avatar] four and five.”
Much like their relationship in the series, Bliss considers Champion to be her “brother from another mother.” They quickly bonded over being the two youngest actors on set, as well as when they started a swear jar for repeat offenders like Cameron and Worthington.
“We actually donated it to a good cause, a pet shelter. F-bombs were $5,” Bliss says. “A little while after filming, I auditioned for a role that had to curse a lot, and Jim [Cameron] joked, ‘We foul-mouthed people really prepared you for it.’”
As for whether she’ll continue to grow up on Pandora, it remains to be seen. As always, it will depend on what Fire and Ash’s final box office tally will be after the typically lucrative holiday stretch. Cameron has also been hedging his bets in the press with regard to Avatar 4 and 5, so Bliss is on pins and needles like everybody else. To account for her and the rest of the young cast growing like weeds, pieces of the fourth chapter have already been shot.
“In the past, it was always something I felt like I could rely on because I was just so looking forward to it. Of course, it would be a shock [if they didn’t happen],” Bliss admits. “So I hope we get to continue on to four and five, but I don’t really know how to feel about whether it’s a sure thing or not. I’m just crossing my fingers.”
Below, during a spoiler conversation with THR, Bliss discusses the ins and outs of being both the youngest Sully and the youngest actor on Cameron’s volume set. Then she shares some tidbits that she’s accumulated over the years about the scripts of Avatar 4 and 5.
***
I thought Jack Champion had a cool name, but I think Trinity Bliss tops it.
(Laughs.) Thank you for that. We loved to joke about our names and compete over which one is the best. On set, when we were still literally little kids, we would make little raps of each other’s names. He always rhymed Trinity with infinity.
(L-R) Jack Champion and Trinity Jo-Li Bliss attend the world premiere of Avatar: Fire and Ash at The Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Dec. 1.
Jesse Grant/Getty Images
Did you bond over being two of the youngest cast members?
I hadn’t thought about it that way, but looking back on it now, maybe it was because we were both the youngest. We were always filming scenes together, so we just bonded really quickly. He’s my brother from another mother.
Plus, you’re both held hostage at different points in these movies.
Trauma bond!
Exactly.
It’s nice to have forever besties from the Avatar set after all these years. I’m still in touch with Jack, and whenever he comes to L.A., he’ll stay with my family and I. So I just really love that I’ve made so many forever friendships.
Have your parents let you watch Scream VI yet?
Yeah, I went to watch it when it was in the theater, and Jack totally led me astray. While watching the film, I was like, “Hmm, I think Jack’s been lying to me.” Of course, I then got to the end. But I loved seeing him in that film, and it made me scream.
Right before I saw Avatar: Fire and Ash, I saw a picture of you and Jack with tears in your eyes after your first screening of it. So I convinced myself that Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) was a goner based on that one photo, and the last half hour was all-the-more stressful. You really gave me quite a scare.
(Laughs.) I loved seeing everybody’s comments on Insta where we posted it. People also put images in the comments on TikTok. A lot of people thought the same as you, and I feel bad for leading everyone to a dark place in anticipation for this film. But Jake can’t die; Sullys never quit.
Were you just emotional to see what you made after so many years of waiting for it?
Yeah, I’m such a softy so I was crying on and off throughout the movie. Different parts really hit my soul. After Jack and I watched it with the whole cast and Jim, we talked about the film, and the nostalgia just hit us. It felt so bittersweet because we weren’t in those times anymore. We were now looking back on those times. We were looking back on our childhood. So getting to be in the same room with everybody that I love and toast champagne — Martinelli’s for Jack and I — to the beautiful film, it was both bittersweet and so surreal.
Do you remember which scene hit you the hardest?
It was probably that scene with Lo’ak when he’s going through that dark time, especially the way Britain’s [Dalton] voice breaks when he says, “It’s not my fault.” I was sobbing. It killed me at the time. He goes through all of that turmoil, and it almost climaxes to him harming himself. So it’s a really important moment in the film, especially with everything that goes on in our own world. Hopefully, a lot of teenagers will be able to find some hope in how Lo’ak really rises to the challenge. It just hit me so hard when Kiri and Tsireya are like, “We love you, Lo’ak.”
It was interesting to watch Fire and Ash now that I’m 16. I saw different themes and characters in a new way. Of course, I relate to Tuk, but now I can relate a lot to the teenagers of the saga and see myself in what they’re going through. The beautiful thing about Avatar is that different ages, cultures, and experiences can all connect over its universal themes. We can all see ourselves in one character or multiple characters.
Also, Ronal’s [Kate Winslet] death was really hard to take even though I knew it was going to happen. This film really made me understand the term “emotional rollercoaster.” I would boo the RDA, cheer for the Na’vi, and then the Ash put me on the edge of my seat. My shoulders would shake from crying, and then I would laugh at Quaritch’s funny one-liners. So it was definitely an emotional rollercoaster.
Is Fire and Ash nearly the same from what you remember shooting? Or did it evolve a lot in post?
It had its evolution, but it’s beautiful how The Way of Water and Fire and Ash are one story in some ways. Fire and Ash continues what The Way of Water set up. That’s why it was still pretty clear to me what this story and a lot of the different plot points were meant to be. But you only see the scripts at a couple table reads, and then everything is top secret after that. So the memory can get quite jumbled when you only find out what you’re filming on the day. You get the dailies and the sides delivered to your trailer in the morning.
Watching it definitely felt like experiencing it all for the first time. Once I was in that dark room with everybody and I had my 3D glasses on, I forgot it all. So it definitely had its evolution during the editing process, especially because so much got cut to make sure the whole story could be streamlined. But I do think that it feels true to what was filmed.
(L-R) Director James Cameron, Trinity Bliss, Britain Dalton, Jack Champion and Sigourney Weaver on the set of Avatar: Fire and Ash
Mark Fellman/20th Century Studios
Were there scenes that you didn’t know were in the movie?
Yes, it was when Quaritch goes to visit the Ash Clan in their natural habitat. Basically, it was all the stuff with the Ash Clan that wasn’t about them chasing the Sullys or holding us hostage or any of that stuff. I didn’t remember it very well, and of course, I wasn’t there for the filming of it. So seeing that on the screen and feeling Oona’s [Chaplin] presence gave me such goosebumps because I wasn’t expecting it. Also, I guess I just forgot about the Lo’ak storyline that I mentioned earlier. I had only read it at the table read, so it probably hit me hard because it was another storyline I wasn’t expecting.
Did you go back and film anything new after The Way of Water came out?
Yes, especially in 2024. We’ve gone back for some pickups over the years, and I even did pickups earlier this year in July. It’s been lovely to grow up with my character and grow alongside her. She feels a part of me forever now. So I’m really hoping that I get to continue to grow with her if we get to do four and five. Continuing this saga would mean a lot to me as a fan of Avatar and as someone who’s part of the Avatar family. The best one is yet to come in my head.
Being 16 years old now, it must be tough to get back into the mode of your 7- to 9-year-old self.
Yeah, whenever I went back for pickups, it was fun to remember what it was like to play Tuk and move like her at that time. She’s still a little Na’vi who’s discovering the world and discovering herself. Even my voice was different then, not just because it was higher, but because it had a little more rasp. And I was much more impulsive when I was little. I trusted my instincts, and I just went for it in that way. So all those things were really fun to rediscover whenever I went back for pickups.
You’re also a foot taller now than you were when you started filming at seven years old.
Yeah, it’s funny because I’m finally Tuk’s height. She’s 5’7’’ or 5’8’’ as a nine-year-old Na’vi. In the hair and makeup room on set, all of us kids who were growing up would mark our heights on this wall. I went from being at the bottom and so separated from everybody else to now being one of the tallest on the wall during pickups. It doesn’t say Trinity; it says “Cricket.” Jack is now probably the tallest on that wall.
During The Way of Water, Jack told me that he could see his age fluctuating throughout the movie. In one scene, he’ll be 14, the next scene he’ll be 16 and the scene after he’ll be 14 again. Do you have your own version of that experience?
Yeah, I can tell, but I wonder if anyone else is able to tell. It’s almost a tonal thing. But it’s also really funny because Tuk still has my nine-year-old teeth, which were buck teeth at the time. So I just see my little self in her most of the time, but in general, I can spot the different versions of myself. That’s one of the reasons why Jack and I were so emotional about it all. We were literally looking back on our childhood, and it’s definitely cool to see our different versions of ourselves on the screen.
Avatar was your first time ever being on a film set, and it’s a completely unique filming experience compared to most other movies. When you went on to film other projects, did it take you a minute to get used to how things are typically done on most sets?
Yeah, there were a lot of things I wasn’t expecting and had to adjust to on typical movie sets. There were aspects like the mark or hair and makeup or the sun going down. With performance capture, you never have to worry about those things. It’s just actor to actor and the director. There are no sun or weather challenges, or hitting the mark. There’s no master shot and then getting everyone’s coverage. Every take is fresh when it’s performance capture.
But I love all of it. I just love being on set. It’s a happy place for me. So there was definitely a discovery process, but it was one that I loved. Other sets are also a much faster experience. I had a total of two years to sit in Avatar and discover my character. On other sets, you just jump into it, and everything moves really quickly. So I learn so much and take something with me from every character and every set.
Film journalists and film fans love Jim Cameron because he’s a straight shooter. He doesn’t hold back in interviews. Is he just as unfiltered on set?
Yeah, it’s one of the many things I love about him as a person. I really love talking with Jim. That unfiltered factor is also in his humor. He has the most dry humor. Sometimes, in the best way, it’s unclear if he’s joking or being serious. It’s really inspiring to work with him because he’s a really collaborative director. He loves building the character with the actor on set, and he’s just always experimenting and playing. So much improv for Tuk came from Jim and I bouncing ideas back and forth. He’d also shout things out for me to try.
I’ve learned so much from his awesome presence and leadership on set. He takes so much time and care to get us into that place where you’re imagining the world around you. We were basically filming two films at once, and he had it all in his head. So, sometimes, the whole set would shut down for half an hour just so he could talk with us about the whole timeline and where our characters are. He would get us into that zone, and even the tone of his voice changes, whether it’s a personal moment or getting us all ready to battle.
Is it true that you and Jack started a swear jar, mainly for Jim and Sam Worthington?
(Laughs.) Yeah, it’s funny to look back on it now. I’m like, “Wow, we did that.” It’s also really funny because Jack and I became contributors to the swear jar [during pickups]. I feel very sheepish to swear around my Avatar family now because Jack and I were the co-founders of the swear jar on set. We actually donated it to a good cause, a pet shelter. But it wasn’t something consistent. If we’re in the middle of a scene or working on set, we weren’t like, “Pay up!” F-bombs were $5; “shit” was $1; “ass” was a penny. I’m not exactly sure how Jack and I decided those ratios, but Sam got to a point where he joked, “Just start me at negative $40 every day. Then I’ll get at least eight F-bombs.” A little while after filming, I auditioned for a role that had to curse a lot, and Jim joked, “We foul-mouthed people really prepared you for it.”
You got to have a big moment in Fire and Ash. Tuk, after being told to stay put the whole movie, plays a key role in getting Kiri and Spider to Eywa. Was that a thrill to film and watch years later?
Yeah, it’s always been one of my favorite scenes. It was one of my favorite scenes to film, and now it’s one of my favorite scenes in the film. I think it was such a cool sequence to film because we had on-land and underwater stuff. The on-land stuff had these huge fans for us to go against the force. Then there was the underwater stuff where we’re connected to the spirit tree before the torpedo hits and pushes us back. It’s such an emotional, physical and climactic sequence.
Tuk finally just realizes, “I’m going to ask for forgiveness, not permission. I can’t stay back and wonder if my family is going to be okay. I want to fight with them and for them. I’m a fighter too, and they shouldn’t underestimate me.” That whole mental process she goes through before she acts is part of her very core, and it’s planting the seed for where she’s going to go in four and five.
You’ve already filmed part of the fourth movie?
Yes, because there’s a time jump in four. And once that time jump passes, we’ll all be our [real-life] ages now, which is so cool. I really want to jump into Tuk’s growth as a teenager. We also have some flashbacks in four, so we filmed little bits and pieces. We haven’t gotten into five, but oh my goodness, I’ve heard all the inside scoops about this beautiful story from Jim and Sig [Weaver]. The scripts were written over a decade ago, and she’s read them. So this whole story has been fleshed out from the beginning, and I really feel like the best one is yet to come.
Jim has been saying in the press that Fire and Ash could be the last one. He’s hedging his bets and not counting his chickens just yet. Would you be surprised if Avatar 4 doesn’t happen?
I don’t know how to feel at this moment. In the past, it was always something I felt like I could rely on because I was just so looking forward to it. I would be so ecstatic to get back on set with all my favorite people again. That set is a playground, and discovering Tuk is a playground. I was a fan of this story before I was even a part of it. So I’ve always looked forward to [four and five], and, of course, it would be a shock [if they didn’t happen]. But I’m really excited that the fans are reuniting with the Sully family right now in Fire and Ash. So I hope we get to continue on to four and five, but I don’t really know how to feel about whether it’s a sure thing or not. I’m just crossing my fingers.
We’ve all heard the story about the studio exec whose one-and-only note in response to Avatar 4’s script was “holy f***.” So it’d be such a shame to not find out what that truly means.
Yes, you put it into words perfectly. That’s on my mind every day. I also want to say, “Holy F,” at Avatar 4. (Laughs.)
You haven’t been able to read the scripts yet, but Jim has still told you the gist of Tuk’s overall arc?
Yes, he has, which is why I’m bursting to get into it. Tuk has so much to discover, and it excites me the way all of these different characters’ arcs are going to unfold and reach sky high. It shakes me to my core, really. Of course, it has to get worse before it gets better. So I don’t know if I was ready to read those scripts yet when I was younger, but now I’m just like, “Hmm, can I read those scripts?” Everything I’ve heard about them is just so exciting. Sig [Weaver] is always joking with me about it. In September, when we were doing press, she was like, “You’ve got to get your paws on those scripts, Trinity.” She’s obsessed with four and five. So all of these characters have some really exciting things that await them.
I think she narrates the fourth one so I can see why she’s excited.
Yeah!
It must’ve been fascinating to watch her believably play a teenager every day.
Yeah, it’s funny to look back on now. I don’t even know if I thought about it that much on set because it just all felt so natural. We were always doing scenes together, so Sig was always hanging out with us kids. We all had fun together, and she has the most playful energy. She’s so much fun to talk to, whether we’re chatting in the makeup chair or getting ready for the day or catching up during press or being pen pals over the years. Sig is really fun, and it’s really special to be able to look up to her in a big sister way on set just like Tuk and Kiri’s relationship. Tuk’s whole heart bursts when she thinks about Kiri. That’s her big sister, her role model and someone she loves so much. So to get to have that relationship with Sig both on/off set and in scenes was really cool.
With Tuk being the youngest, everyone is very protective of her in the story. Was everyone very protective of you as well? Was there a lot of overlap between your personal experience and your character’s experience?
Yeah, I guess there was a lot of overlap. I just always felt very well taken care of on that set. But like Tuk, I wanted to keep up with everybody. I wanted to keep up with the older kids. The best thing about that set was that no one treated me like a little kid. Of course, they looked out for me and wanted me to be taken care of, but they didn’t treat me like a little kid. We would have real conversations, and as a kid, that’s all you want and hope for.
I have a little dog named Levi. I adopted him because my castmate was fostering him at the time on the Avatar set. He’s a small dog, but he never thinks that he’s a small dog when he’s with other dogs. So that was me when I was little. I didn’t really realize how legendary all my cast and crew members are. So it’s funny to look back on now, but I was very taken care of and supported. We all loved to bond together.
Oona, who plays Varang, was very much not villainous off camera. We would make friendship bracelets together, or we’d play the guitar and ukulele together. She even helped me make a diorama for school when I was behind on work. (Laughs.) So everybody was so caring to me.
Well, I hope we get the chance to do this again for Avatar 4.
Same. I can’t wait.
Maybe Jim should officially call it Avatar: Holy F.
(Laughs.) Can I manifest that for you and with you? Because I would die for that title. I’m going to mention it to him the next time I see him.
*** Avatar: Fire and Ash is now playing in movie theaters.
Hey, Jim Cameron here. I’m the director of “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” So this is Varang, played by Oona Chaplin. And she’s sharing with Quaritch, now that he’s in this altered state of consciousness, her backstory about how the volcano erupted. She doesn’t use the term “volcano.” She says the fire came from the mountain. We can fill that in for ourselves, destroyed her homeland, she says, “burned our forests.” And she talks about the plight of her people. So this is Oona imagining flame. There’s no flame. And we even went back and did a pickup on this line — “But Eywa did not come.” — because I wanted something punchy that I could really zoom in tight on her face because we really fell in love with her character, the look of her character. People need to remember there’s actually zero photography going on here. There’s a hundred percent performance capture. So when we see this P.O.V., of how Quaritch is perceiving her, which is his altered state due to the hallucinogenic truth powder that she shot up his nose with her blowpipe. This is me with my virtual camera just playing, just having fun. Just seeing what a 9 millimeter lens would look like, just seeing what would happen if I jitter the zoom so it kind of flutters and fluctuates a little bit. And then we created shaders that would have the surface kind of boiling with these fractal patterns. And we created lags and all that. So I did a little research ahead of time on this back in college. [Laughs] No more said on that. And so this is Oona and Stephen Lang. And they didn’t do a lot of preparation. We didn’t rehearse the scene very much. We just kind of plunged into it. But you see two really consummate actors working here and just bouncing off each other, just feeding off each other’s energy. So Stephen approached it that he was on some kind of hallucinatory drug but he actually — he was playing it that he thought she was kind of amazing and almost goddess like. And that’s why we play with the scale and the size of her with the wide lens here, and that he actually thinks it’s kind of amazing and even funny at times, some of the things she says. Now, meanwhile, we’re supposed to think he’s in a lot of danger here. He’s lost his overwatch guy: Wainfleet, his sniper. He’s hidden from him. He’s on his own with her. She’s got a knife. She’s picking up his kuru. We’ve already seen her sever the kurus of many other people. Yeah, we’re past the point of peak jeopardy here, where we fake out the audience that she’s going to cut his kuru off, which we’ve also been told is worse than death for them. Oona’s performance is extremely detailed here. I’ve got an awful lot of respect for what she did. I don’t recall us doing a lot of takes. But at this point the power starts to shift. He said, “I can give you the one thing you’ve never had, which is an equal, ” and that stops her in her tracks. And then he starts to paint this picture of what he can do for her with human technology: guns and various advanced tech. And because he’s on a truth serum, she must believe everything that he says. And that’s what’s wonderful about this scene, because he can’t be lying. It will happen the way he describes it. And then she’s looking out into a future where she has the kind of power that she’s always dreamed of. And that’s when she says, “I see you,” meaning I see what you’re saying. “You need me.” “I see you.” And he closes with “damn right you do.” Which is — It’s been his plan all along to walk in there and do that. So all that time you thought he was in jeopardy. He was actually just setting her up. Now it starts to play out. So cinematically, I love this scene. I like the slow motion, I like the wind. I like the fact that you don’t hear any true sound here other than just the music, this incredibly pounding, driving thing. It’s almost like the music of a destiny playing out. And when his technology meets her lust for power, it becomes almost sexual here, her glee. It’s actually written in the script that she’s like a girl with her first pony. You know what I mean? Like, she’s just so happy with what he’s brought for her. But it’s actually quite a dark moment because you see the tumblers in the lock of destiny are kind of turning and locking in. And I had a bunch of dialogue here where he says, “So, are we partners?” And she says, “This is not the way we become partners,” but it just turned out to be unnecessary. And so it became a very stylized kind of cinematic approach. [GUNSHOTS]
While overall box office revenue won’t make any gains in 2025, the same can’t be said of Disney.
The studios sprawling film empire on Wednesday will cross the $6 billion mark in global box office revenue for the year, having earned $5.967 billion globally through Tuesday, including $2.310 billion domestically and $3.656 billion internationally.
This marks the first time Disney has hit $6 billion since 2019, just before the pandemic struck and decimated moviegoing. Even before COVID, clearing $6 billion was no easy feat. No other studio has done so since 2015, while Disney is a now a five-time multiple offender (2016-2019, 2025).
Disney’s success this year has been fueled by 16 wide releases, led by the only two titles that have crossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office: Zootopia 2, which has earned $1.311 billion to date, and Lilo & Stitch, which topped out at $1.038 billion earlier this year. Thanks to some nifty math, Disney is also reporting that three Marvel Studios’ titles have collectively grossed more than $1.3 billion worldwide, even if not one title did so on its own; The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Thunderbolts* and Captain America: Brave New World.
Other titles helping to propel Disney past $6 billion were Predator: Badlands, Freakier Friday and Elio, albeit at much smaller numbers.
James Cameron‘s Avatar: Fire and Ash is the icing on the cake, grossing $450.1 million at the global box office after only seven days in release, including worldwide earnings of $51 million on Tuesday. In North America, it topped Tuesday’s chart with $16.5 million for a domestic tally of $119 million. Overseas, it finished the day with a foreign tally of $331.1 million.
Avatar 3 is easily expected to dominate the long Christmas weekend (Thursday-Sunday) with a four-day gross of $70 million to $75 million, if not more. Sony’s comedic adventure Anaconda, teaming Jack Black and Paul Rudd, opens nationwide on Dec. 25 alongside Timothée Chalamet‘s Marty Supreme and Focus Features’ music-infused Song Sing Blue, starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. They join a crop of films opening last weekend that wanted to a jump on the holiday. In addition to Avatar, these include Lionsgate’s femme-skewing The Housemaid, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried; Angel Studios’ faith-based David; and Paramount’s The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, which still hopes to hunt down families after a soft debut.
Anaconda, Song Sing Blue, and Marty Supreme — which is expanding nationwide after opening in New York and L.A. last weekend to supremely impressive numbers after a massive marketing blitz by its leading man — will all hold Wednesday previews before opening everywhere on Christmas Day, which can be a busy day for moviegoing once presents are unwrapped.
Avatar: Fire and Ash includes a crisis lifeline in the end credits for a good reason.
James Cameron and 20th Century Studios’ Avatar: Fire and Ash, also known as Avatar 3, opened in the United States this past weekend. The sequel to Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water sees Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, and Stephen Lang reprise their respective roles as Jake Sully, Neytiri, and Colonel Miles Quaritch.
Some Avatar audiences have noticed that there’s a suicide prevention hotline in the closing credits of Avatar: Fire and Ash. While this confused some and led others to make jokes, there’s actually a good, narrative-related reason as to why this is in there.
Why is there a crisis lifeline in the end credits of Avatar: Fire and Ash?
In the first half of Avatar: Fire and Ash, there’s a scene where Jake and Neytiri’s Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) briefly puts a gun to his head and considers pulling the trigger. This is shortly after he gets into a fight with his father, as both of them are still in various stages of processing the death of Jake’s son/Lo’ak’s brother Neteyam (Jame Flatters).
Filmmakers are strongly encouraged to include suicide prevention hotline numbers or other resources whenever a project, be it a movie or a TV show, addresses this subject matter. Per the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand, “We do know that suicide on screen can cause significant distress, and can, in some cases, lead to vulnerable viewers becoming suicidal. If you’ve lost a loved one to suicide, struggle with suicidal ideation or have attempted suicide in the past, you deserve a heads up so you can make the best decision for yourself. If you need to give these shows or movies a miss, there’s no shame in that! Self-care means checking in with yourself about how you’re feeling and what you can cope with, and making the best decisions for you.”
Avatar: Fire and Ash is now playing in theaters.
Originally reported by Brandon Schreur at SuperHeroHype.
James Cameron is one of those directors I wish would stop speaking. The director of Avatar loves to share his thoughts an opinions on movies. And now he’s telling the world how angry he is that Amy Poehler joked about him 12 years ago. Not helping your case here, Jim.
The joke came when Kathryn Bigelow, Cameron’s ex-wife, was nominated at the Golden Globes for her film Zero Dark Thirty. Poehler and co-host Tina Fey joked at the start of the ceremony, poking at the nominees and other filmmakers. The joke in question had Poehler saying “When it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron.”
Now, 12 years later, Cameron is still mad about it. He was profiled by The New York Times for his film Avatar: Fire and Ash and brought up how he is “thick-skinned” but he’s still talking about something that happened a decade ago and was a joke at an award show. Cameron shared that he thought the joke was an “ignorant dig.”
“Amy Poehler’s remark was an ignorant dig, at an event which is supposed to be a celebration of cinema and filmmakers, not a roast,” Cameron told The Times. “I’m pretty thick-skinned, and happy to be the butt of a good-natured joke, but that went too far. The fact that people found it funny shows exactly what they think of me, even though they have no idea who I am or how I work.”
James Cameron Shares How He Still Supports Kathryn Bigelow
The joke that Poehler made was never about the actual relationship between Bigelow and Cameron but rather the, at times, insufferable way Cameron speaks. This all happened prior to him missing the point on the Marvel Cinematic Universe and continually saying rude and nonsensical things about the franchise. Still, he made it clear that he is still supportive of Bigelow’s career.
“I was the first one on my feet applauding,” Cameron said. “Kathryn and I thought the whole meta-narrative around us was pretty funny. I was a little concerned that it would just take away from her credibility as a filmmaker. It started to turn into a conversation that wasn’t about her film, and that bothered both of us.”
All of that is well and good but the point, James Cameron, is that Poehler and Fey were simply making a joke about you. So Mr. Thick-skinned was too stuck on being called “torturous” to get over it.
(featured image: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images/Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is the Editor in Chief of the Mary Sue. She’s been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff’s biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she’s your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh. She has multiple podcasts, normally has opinions on any bit of pop culture, and can tell you can actors entire filmography off the top of her head. Her current obsession is Glen Powell’s dog, Brisket.
Her work at the Mary Sue often includes Star Wars, Marvel, DC, movie reviews, and interviews.
Varang, the seductive leader of the Mangkwan clan—also known as the Ash People—is the most dynamic character in Avatar: Fire and Ash. She’s physically powerful (and often wielding flaming arrows or dual blades); she’s full of rage and intensity. And she’s brought to life by Oona Chaplin, who’s best known for playing Robb Stark’s ill-fated wife on Game of Thrones—and for being the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, as well as the great-granddaughter of Eugene O’Neill.
But back when she first auditioned for the third film in James Cameron’s epic film series, Chaplin was as far away from the world of showbiz as she could get: living in a tree house she built herself in Cuba. “There was very, very little in this world that would’ve taken me out of the tree house. But the call from James Cameron certainly did,” she tells Vanity Fair.
Before decamping for Cuba, Chaplin had been working in the Calais Jungle—a refugee and immigrant encampment in the vicinity of Calais, France. After that incredibly difficult experience, she needed to go off the grid. “I’d gone through a little bit of a personal life crisis, and I decided to live in a tree house in the jungle in Cuba,” she says. “I built it with a couple of drunken neighbors.”
Chaplin actually shot the role in 2017, when Cameron filmed The Way of Water and Fire and Ash simultaneously. She had to spend nearly a decade keeping details about her character secret. “But because the process was so rich and fulfilling, there was a part of me that kind of put it to bed,” she says. “I was like, ‘cool. Even if the film never comes out, I’m happy.’ I feel like I accomplished and learned so much as a person, as an artist.” Since then, Chaplin has gotten married, had a child, and moved to Sonoma County, California, where she lives on a 20-acre farm with her family.
Now that Avatar: Fire and Ash is finally out, Chaplin spoke to Vanity Fair about her transformational journey, her surprising inspiration for the fiery leader, and what it’s like to carry the last name Chaplin.
I don’t love the Avatar films as much as I should, and that might be directly correlated to the number of movies I’ve seen across the years of my life. I’m fully aware that James Cameron and his team of technical geniuses have, with Pandora, built a world that is gorgeous in which to get lost, like a black light poster in a dorm room, but the scripts, going back to the original, feel like an amalgamation of other better movies.
Visually, the Avatars are works of limitless originality, but those plots not only cannibalize dozens of classic movies from across the decades, but also the Avatar movies themselves.
Back in 2009, Avatar took the white savior narrative of Dances with Wolves and smashed it together with the world-building and environmental messaging of FernGully: The Last Rainforest with astonishingly popular results. If the technical aspects of Avatar weren’t so groundbreaking (with still unmatched motion capture, 3D, and CGI), then I’m not sure these movies would have grossed billions in the box office, making Avatar the highest grossing film of all time and 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water the third highest-grossing. They’re not necessarily bad movies; they just don’t say anything we haven’t seen a million times. Or at least I haven’t.
Will the new Avatar: Fire and Ash make billions like its older siblings? Time will tell, but as a film, I think it’s probably the strongest of the three, with the same amount of derivative storytelling, but improved in its character work and arcs, with more exciting action and interesting plot directions for future installments. I still don’t necessarily care about what I’m looking at, but I’m at least entertained by what is onscreen.
Sam Worthington is still mostly stoic and wooden as Jake Sully, once a marine and now fully entrenched in his life as a Na’vi: ten-foot-tall, blue, indigenously coded space kitties. Along with his racist and nearly feral wife and baby momma, Neytiri (the always mesmerizing to watch Zoe Saldaña) and their four children of equal or lesser interest (including a pre-teen Sigourney Weaver and a white kid with dreads who says “bro” a lot), the Sully clan must band together to fight evil corporate and military colonizers, a psychotic, volcano-dwelling tribe of Na’vi called the Mangkwan and Colonel Quaritch, a Colonel Kurtz-esque marine who is torn between his dedication to the military and his desire to be a ten-foot-tall kitty cat.
We’re probably going to be watching Avatar movies for the rest of our lives as Cameron has a chunk of Avatar 4 already filmed (so that the kids don’t age too much) and Avatar 5 is planned, plotted and mostly scripted. There’s a lot of room for stories to be told in the world of Pandora, and the Sully family is just the tip of the iceberg (or at least it should be). It makes sense that Jake was the main character of the original because he served as an audience surrogate, exploring Pandora at the same time as we did. But now he feels like an impediment to more complex stories told in this universe. I’m pretty over the Sully family now. Or at least Jake.
Most of Avatar: Fire and Ash feels like Way of Water 2.0 with several of the same story beats and character arcs recycled once more. Again, all of it is very pretty to look at and I was never bored for any of its 200-plus minutes, but I’ll forget most of it within days, just as I did the previous ones. I think the Avatar movies might be the only ones in history that make as much money as they do, but leave no real cultural footprint. Yes, the Na’vi are iconic as a design, but ask the average viewer to name one of the Sully kids or how/why Sigourney Weaver was cloned and they won’t have a clue. Cameron and his team of writers seem more interested in playing around with their own Campbell-esque, archetypal hero monomyth tropes than actually telling a captivating story.
Cameron has made some of my favorite movies of all time with Terminator 2, The Abyss, and Aliens, but I wish I understood why he has spent so much time in the twilight of his career on these movies when I know he has better work in him. So far, the high water mark of the Avatar trilogy for me is the second hour of The Way of Water, which just sees the Sully kids swimming around and exploring the oceans of Pandora. No story, no cringey dialogue, just a mesmerizing tech demo in which to get lost. Cameron is still a visual master, regardless of the goofiness of these movies, I just hope we get another masterpiece before he retires.
Still, the villains are great (including a scene-stealing Oona Chaplin as a psychedelic space witch), the 3D and IMAX projection is breathtaking, and the messages involving conservation, anti-colonization, and pro-indigenous protection are important.
I respect what Cameron is doing with these movies more than I actually like them, but as long as he is behind the camera, he has earned my three hours of attention. Even as the realization slowly dawns that these movies just might not be my thing, I’m ultimately resigned to the fact that I’m probably not done with Pandora yet and it’s certainly not done with me.
We all knew Avatar: Fire and Ashwas hitting just before Christmas as the big movie of the holiday season, so now we’re just waiting to see how much it makes.
Already, it’s off to a solid start, making $345 million worldwide in its opening weekend. Per the Hollywood Reporter, it’s the second-best Hollywood open of 2025 behind Zootopia 2, even as its $88 million domestic take is on the low end of projections, which pegged between $85 million and $95 million. Even so, it’s doing gangbusters internationally, and the last two movies had long tails during their theatrical runs. The first Avatar and The Way of Water were the top movies in North America for seven weeks each, continually making money, so there’s a good chance that continues for a third time.
One thing lacking from Fire and Ash that benefitted Way of Water is time: there was a 13-year gap between the first two Avatar movies, while this one just has three. It’s even more of a known entity now than pre-2022, made clear by both the From the Ashesexpansion for Ubisoft’s 2023 game Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora meant to coincide with the film’s release andMiley Cyrus’ recent single. As such, there might be a sense of newness missing for Fire and Ash, even as it’s racking up solid reviews and very good impressions from audiences.
Director James Cameron has acknowledged this, saying that if he doesn’t end up making those fourth and fifth movies, he’s already got a backup plan. And it probably also helps that reactions have noted how much Ash feels like a closer in its own right, so it’s not like the franchise will abruptly die—but it may have to work a little harder to reach its own box office heights.
2025’s holiday movie season has a big flick in this weekend’s Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third entry in James Cameron’s long-running sci-fi series. After the first movie dropped in 2009, a 13-year wait helped make 2022’s The Way of Waterinto one of the biggest movies that year, making a lot of money and winning some awards. How does this new film fare with just a standard three-year gap?
Reactions to Fire and Ash feel generally in line with that of the first two films: gorgeous visuals, set pieces, and scale, everthing else is kind of perfunctory. (And, y’know, it’s long as hell.) The big selling point for the threequel is the introduction of the Ash People, the first evil Na’vi clan to grace the films. Said clan is led by Oona Chaplin’s Varang, who strikes up a romantic relationship with series baddie Quaritch (Stephen Lang) in ways that are apparently very compelling to watch play out on screen when they’re not trying to kill the Sully family. Meanwhile, the Sullys are still coping with the death of eldest son Neteyam from the last movie and discover there may be a way for humankind to live on Pandora.
While we all wait to see how Avatar: Fire and Ash does on the box office level, tell us what you thought of the film. Loved it, hated it, think Cameron will get to make those next two movies? Let us know in the comments below.
