Avatar’s future is off to a fantastic start, as the world has shown up for The Way of Water’s box office debut, and then some. As such, there are some who are happy to continue soaking in the long-awaited return to Pandora in its current chapter, while others are ready to look to the future.
Forward-thinking fans are probably wondering what the Ash People and their villainous motivations will hold for Avatar 3, and a little more information has just been released about that front of the upcoming sci-fi movie. Apparently Varang, the leader of that forthcoming tribe, will be played by Game of Thrones vet Oona Chaplin.
This information came from the most recent issue of Empire (via Screen Rant) thanks to an interview with producer Jon Landau. One of the top lieutenants in the Avatar power structure, Landau revealed that the currently-unnamed Ash People leader will be played by Chaplin, as he further fleshed out the concept of the film’s Na’vi villains with these additional breadcrumbs:
There are good humans, and there are bad humans - the same thing on the Navi side - but oftentimes, people don't see themselves as bad. What is the root cause of how they evolve into what we perceive as bad? Maybe there are other factors there that we're not aware of.
Knownw to Thrones fans as Talisa, Robb Stark’s wife and one of the many victims of the extremely gory Red Wedding, Oona Chaplin is now on the other side of the moral coin. Avatar’s next sequel will allow her to potentially terrorize the Sully family and all who harbor them, and we finally know the actors role years after her Avatar casting was unveiled back in 2017.
Character-wise, Jon Landau is further backing James Cameron’s Ash remarks, which have set up these “evil Na’vi” as being meant to give more depth to the species that inhabits Pandora. We’ve never really seen Na’vi fighting against Na’vi outside of the lab-grown Recom soldiers led by Colonel Miles Quarritch’s reincarnation. This new feud might even give us more cultural knowledge as to the history of Pandora before its first human colonizers arrived.
Grudges just might be the focus of Avatar 3, as it was also revealed that we’re on the road to a rematch between Payakan and the RDA’s Mick Scoresby. Deeper than the roots of the Hometree might be the scores waiting to be settled in the near future, and now we have a name to put to the blue face we should expect to see in 2024.
Avatar 3 is slated for a December 20, 2024 release date, while Avatar: The Way of Water is currently in theaters. You can return to the original adventure that started it all with a Disney+ subscription, as that’s once again the place to go for the 2009 blockbuster.
