Zoe Saldana’s hilarious response as James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ movies delayed

Actress Zoe Saldana has reacted in shock after Disney announced it was significantly delaying the release of the three remaining Avatar films.

Zoe Saldana has reacted after news Disney is pushing back the release of the three remaining Avatar films.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint, where Avatar is concerned.

All three films remaining in the James Cameron-directed franchise have been significantly pushed back from their original release dates, with Disney announcing on Wednesday that the next film – Avatar 3 – will now drop in December 2025, a year after it was initially supposed to debut.

The delay has triggered a domino effect for the remaining movies, with Avatar 4 – which was supposed to hit cinemas in December 2026 – now having a new release date of December 2029, while the fifth and final Avatar will debut in December 2031, three years after it was initially supposed to premiere.

US actress Zoe Saldana – who plays Neytiri – couldn’t help but laugh about the extended drop, pointing out how old she’ll be when the epic finally comes to a conclusion in eight years time.

“Great! I’m gonna be 53 when the last Avatar comes out,” Saldana, now 44, wrote on Instagram. “I was 27 when I shot the very first Avatar.”

Zoe Saldana has reacted to news the Avatar movies have been pushed back.

Saldana was 27 when she shot the first Avatar. Picture: AFP/VALERIE MACON

Australian actor Sam Worthington, who stars as Jake Sully, will be 55, while Cameron will be 77, when they officially close the chapter on the sci-fi franchise.

Avatar producer Jon Landau took to Twitter to explain the reason for the lengthy delay:

Each Avatar film is an exciting but epic undertaking that takes time to bring to the quality level we as filmmakers strive for and audiences have come to expect. The team is hard at work and can’t wait to bring audiences back to Pandora in December 2025. pic.twitter.com/DrFX01qzTa

— Jon Landau (@jonlandau) June 13, 2023

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to fans of the blockbuster, with its sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, finally hitting cinemas late last year, 13 years after the original was released to much fanfare in 2009.

Both films became box office behemoths, with the sequel defying its naysayers to generate a whopping $US2.3 billion worldwide – making it the third highest-grossing movie of all time.

It missed out on joining the first film in the top two, with Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame ($US2.8b) firmly in second place, while the original Avatar has maintained its stronghold as the highest-grossing film of all time ($US2.9b).

Avatar: The Way of Water made $US2.3 billion. Picture: 20th Century Studios

Avatar 3 may be more than two years away, but it’s already been filmed, having been shot at the same time as The Way of Water, which took place over three years.

Production on Avatar 4 officially began last year, though Cameron said in December 2021 he had to shoot some scenes with child actors during co-production on the sequel and number three.

“I had to shoot the kids out. They’re allowed to age six years in the middle of the story on page 25 of movie 4,” Cameron explained in an interview with Variety.

“So I needed everything before then, and then everything after, we’ll do later.”

Originally published as Zoe Saldana’s hilarious response as James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ movies delayed