James Cameron set to bring ‘Avatar’ films’ documentary ahead of ‘Fire and Ash’, trailer out

LOS ANGELES: James Cameron’s ‘Fire and Water: Making The Avatar Films’ documentary is finally happening, with the first official trailer out now.

Set to premiere on Disney+, the documentary will explore James Cameron’s painstaking process that went behind making the ‘Avatar’ films. Viewers will be offered an insight into the production of 2022’s ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ as well as a glimpse into the upcoming ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’, as per Variety.

It will also feature behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the film’s cast and filmmakers, including Cameron himself, the late producer Jon Landau, and actors Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Kate Winslet.

Speaking in the trailer, the filmmaker teases, “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. As much as we use computers and technology, ‘Avatar’ is made by an incredibly talented team of people who bring every expression, every emotional beat and the entire world to life”.

The trailer showcases the use of motion capture to translate the actors’ performances, including their body movements and facial expressions, transforming them into the characters. The cast also took lessons to learn how to free dive in a massive, state-of-the-art 680,000-gallon water tank.

“If not for the actors. Pandora would just be a beautiful world with no life in it,” Saldana says in the trailer, while Worthington added, “There’s not one thing that you see us do that is animated. It is all us”.

Directed and produced by Thomas C Grane, ‘Fire and Water: Making the Avatar Films’ is executive produced by Cameron and Rae Sanchini. The trailer arrived on the heels of Zoe Saldana’s recent request for a documentary about the ‘Avatar’ films.

The Oscar-winning actress shared that the filmmaker “is considering a documentary about the making of Avatar — finally giving us a chance to explain, in a meticulous way, why performance capture is the most empowering form of acting,” as quoted by The Hollywood Reporter.

The next in the franchise, ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ will hit theatres on December 19, 2025. (ANI)