Michelle Yeoh joined the Avatar sequels in 2019, but she won't show up until 2029's Avatar 4
Playing the long game.
Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh joined the Avatar sequels a long time ago, back in 2019, but she won't be appearing in them until 2029's Avatar 4.
James Cameron himself denied the veteran actress would show up in next year's Avatar: Fire and Ash while talking to Entertainment Weekly, shooting down previous reports of her role coming into play in the threequel.
"Michelle Yeoh won't be in three. She's in four and five...so that got a little bit misreported. She will be coming in soon to do her part, which is an interesting, fun character. I mean, we're getting ahead of ourselves now. This whole thing has been planned for years and years," he told EW. Even though we've yet to meet and learn more about Yeoh's character, we've known her name for a while - Dr. Karina Morgue. Whether she's one of the good or bad RDA people remains to be seen (though she appeared in this 2021 IG photo alongside Giovanni Ribisi's villainous RDA boss), but this all but confirms she won't be yet another new Na'vi character.
"The scripts were all written years ago, through the end of movie five. So we've been working on parts of four even as we go along, mostly because we've got this young cast. We had to shoot them all while they were still young," added Cameron. There had been post-Way of Water reports that most of the cast would be shooting Avatar 4 next, yet it appears the bulk of the fourquel is still waiting to be shot. Instead, Cameron and his team have recently been finishing up the third movie before moving deeper into post-production. That said, it makes sense that bits of Avatar 4 would be shot alongside The Way of Water's principal photography, given the involvement of young actors and Cameron confirming there's a big time jump happening after the start of the fourquel.
Yeoh has obviously become bigger than ever after her Oscar win for Everything Everywhere All at Once, yet she was already a major presence in Hollywood in the years leading up to that fantastic movie. Up next, she's got two big sci-fi roles in Star Trek: Section 31, a spinoff movie to the Star Trek: Discovery series, and Prime Video's Blade Runner 2099.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is currently set to open in theaters on December 19, 2025. Then, unless more delays happen (please no), there will be a rather long wait until Avatar 4 hits on December 21, 2029, with Avatar 5 arriving two years later, on December 19, 2031. And yes, Cameron is directing all of them unless he's "hit by a bus" or something.