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Avatar's Pandora is entirely virtual, except when it comes to making the actors uncomfortable with real flames on set
"This is Jim Cameron, you know?" says Avatar: Fire and Ash second-unit director Garrett Warren. "We’re not doing stuff for fake."
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Despite it being one of the most heavily-CGI'd big-budget franchises in modern movie history, at least some of the danger you're going to see in the next Avatar film is real. That's Avatar: Fire and Ash, in case you weren't keeping track, and a recent discussion with some of the folks who made the film revealed that not everything we see comes from a computer. Appropriately, some of it is going to come from real flame.
The story comes out of an interview Empire Magazine conducted with Fire and Ash's second-unit director, Garrett Warren. "We want people to feel the heat," said Warren to his interviewer, speaking of the surprisingly practical stunt effects performed by the actors. For example, Warren says that stunt coordinator Steve Brown "basically had to jump off a moving bird the same way the Ash Warriors do [...] There were a couple of good faceplants."
Whether director James Cameron will release those (hopefully harmless!) faceplants in a blooper roll at some point, Warren went on record to tease an especially exciting action sequence in the movie, calling it "a cross between a pirate-ship [invasion] and an air-to-air combat battle, with the ikran, the flying creatures that move through the air, like fighter jets."
Sounds like a pretty CGI-heavy battle, but as Warren assures us, at least some of that will be very practical. "This is Jim Cameron, you know?" the filmmaker concludes, "We’re not doing stuff for fake."
Avatar: Fire and Ash blazes into theaters December 19, 2025.
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