‘Avatar 3’: James Cameron Confirms That Kate Winslet Will Be Back As Ronal

James Cameron confirmed today that he and Kate Winslet are working together again on Avatar 3, the third film in the director’s $5 billion-and-counting franchise. Cameron recently said the project’s post production schedule was “hectic,” but the film is due out “Christmas of ’25.”

Cameron said in an interview with People that Winslet will once again play Ronal. While Winslet’s involvement in Avatar: The Way of Water was relatively minimal, it sounds like she will have more to do in the third film.

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The director said Winslet “went to school” with a real-life shaman to learn more about she will employ in the 2025 release.

“When you see her doing that purification ritual to try to revive Kitty in the film and some of the stuff that she’s going to do in movie three, that’s based on actual practice,” he said.

It makes sense that we’d see more of Ronal, given Cameron told GQ today that “the big [creative] advance in this movie is just going to be greater character depth.”

Here’s a fuller quote from him on that:

“We’re seeing new cultures, new creatures—all the same stuff you’d expect from an Avatar movie, but the whole idea of this cycle of films is to live with these people and go on this epic journey with them. So I think it’s not about, ‘We’re going to show you the best water [VFX] ever done’ — but you get more into the heart and soul of the characters. And there’s some very interesting new characters that come in as well. This is a journey over time. It will play out through movie three, into movie four and movie five. There’s an epic cycle to the whole thing.”

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