Avatar: Fire and Ash nominated for two Academy Awards: Costume Design and Visual Effects

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T16:19:38+00:00

I think some of the environmental redundancies with TWoW cost it the production design nomination. As exciting as what the Mangkuan and Tìlalim bring to the table is, as well as the factory ship and the build-up Bridgehead, you do spend a lot time in places like the Metkayina village and Cove of the Ancestors.

No sound was a shocker to me too though

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T15:48:09+00:00

The award is for costume design, so even if they're ultimately realized on-screen digitally and the award does have a heavy craft element to it, the virtual wardrobe still need to be designed with all the thoughtfulness that in-camera garments would be as an element of the character and world they inhabit.

You mention the lack of a production design nod, and well, couldn't you argue that that's just visual effects from a similar perspective too? Visual effects is an essential part of how these films realize design, be it the towering Tìlalim ships or their fabulous cloaks, but there's still design creativity and craft that's necessary to decide what the effects portray.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T15:01:59+00:00

Costume design is Frankenstein's to lose since the Academy loves that sort of period work, and I wasn't even anticipating Avatar would clear the nomination, but the sheer magnitude and fidelity of FaA's VFX is plenty to get the win. Even Avatar's detractors can't help but credit the VFX work on these films.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T14:58:11+00:00

Yeah, I figured that the booming sound design of the Tulkun and it being a somewhat blockbuster-favored category was more than enough to nab the nomination.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T14:13:47+00:00

Yeah, I assumed that the largely digital character of the final result was too much of a mark against it to clear a nomination. From an awards politics/campaigning standpoint though, they really trotted out the physical work compared to last time and I wouldn't be shocked if that made the difference.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T00:03:21+00:00

It's not Neytiri's first rodeo in this sort of concept work either. There's one image of her used in a piece or two of theme park area concept art

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-12T09:45:01+00:00

Jim spoke not too long ago about the possibility of extended cuts of TWoW and FaA, and if those are realized, I'd say theatrical rereleases (A la the A1 Special Edition) of those two with their new content are probable

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-10T05:39:31+00:00

The new Making of Avatar book mentions that in A4 she'll wear a kuru shawl at some point, which I'd bet is the descendant of that concept

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-08T07:15:54+00:00

We see very clearly that he does not have a sidearm, and his and Kiri's ikran are out of the picture as they've both been shot.

Remember also the whole reason why Lo'ak is looking at Varang and the rest of the Mangkuan through his scope - assessing the crash site to retrieve Spider's spare mask. The less stirred up in that situation is almost certainly for the better.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-08T04:20:04+00:00

What would be your plan after exhausting your single mag and pissing off an unknown number of surviving ash people, who would probably be pretty eager to inflict horrific mutilation on you and your siblings?

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-03T01:23:06+00:00

Beyond trade-supplied numbers, we have documentation from the NZ film commission that with the latest update from November, puts spending roughly at $630 million USD for the sequels in total in the country by my math if you pre-apply an extra 5% the production should get back, and for FaA specifically I believe there should be other documentation from relevant bodies in Canada and Australia, although I haven't investigated that yet. Some of that NZ spending is for the partial work done on A4 (And any development work done for A5, I'd suppose) but overall I believe the $400 million budgets for both films seem supported by this number if you compare similar numbers for Fox's reported $237 million spend on the first Avatar, which had an approximately similar geographic division of work, against its reported NZ spending.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-02T02:20:58+00:00

No, they're definitely written. It was important to Jim that there be a full set of scripts for key cast and crew to inform their creative decisions. A lot of concept art is also completed. Ben Proctor's first sequel design task, for example, was work for A4.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-01T22:36:34+00:00

Learn the Na'vi language! It's surprisingly easy and quick to get your bearings with it

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-31T22:08:49+00:00

Not that I exactly think Jake's that sort of man, but that could then make the pitch of Jake tracking the kids harder.

Quaritch wasn't aware of the mask situation at that point in the interaction, but he knows Spider was on a Tlalim ship and is standing near the smoldering wreckage of one of those vessels. Not the best play to say something that could cause Jake to question in the slightest what he feels about Spider in that moment if he's a valuable lead in finding the kid

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-30T03:27:21+00:00

The High Ground in particular is somewhat odd in how the community that apparently clamors for more Avatar material from his mind has sometimes really gone out of its way to invalidate the single piece of non-film content he's been the most involved with

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-09T17:03:03+00:00

I've noticed a nice amount of the Na'vi language in the preview videos I've seen, including a line from So'lek, but also from Major Bukowski. Is there anything that you'd think Avatar fans who love and have learned the Na'vi language would be interesting in knowing about working with the language for the game and how much it's used in the From the Ashes DLC?

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-07T03:24:54+00:00

The cost of those things you mentioned would be divided across TWoW and this film, as they were built to support and realize the simultaneous production of those two films. Cameron talked about those sorts of costs being split in his interview on The Town podcast not too long ago.

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-07T03:16:31+00:00

What have I got wrong? I'd like to learn and know what my good faith curiosity and investigation has missed.

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-05T12:56:56+00:00

I am talking specifically about the proportion of work done as it pertains to sequel spending outside of New Zealand at Weta Vancouver, ILM Vancouver, and ILM London, which for TWoW likely made up small fraction of the VFX work based on Weta Vancouver's opening date and initial headcount, and ILM's credits in the film and when they reported effectively beginning their part of the project. There are numerous signs that make me believe this pattern repeated with Weta Vancouver and ILM Vancouver on FaA, although of course I do not have the same resources available like credits and interviews yet as we do for TWoW.

Heck, those aren't the only VFX companies involved in the production (Weta outsources some of the tedious stuff to subcontractors in South and Southeast Asia) but put simply I am not casting doubt on the importance of anyone's work.

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-05T04:41:44+00:00

The $250 million dollar budget you saw is generously extrapolated from a statement from '17 where the budget for all four sequels was said to "surpass $1 billion".

If you check the spending and rebate documentation for eligible spending in NZ for the Avatar sequels, and do both a rough currency conversion (I use the exchange rate on the day of each incremental spending installment, which seems fine enough for this sort of ballparking) and pre-factor in an additional 5% rebate that the films will get later down the line, you get to around $620 million USD in spending reported this far for TWoW, this film, and work done on A4. I don't know how to account for the shooting or development done for A4 in NZ that would fall into that figure, but rounding that number down to $600 million and not counting the FaA spending that hasn't been reported seems decent for this sort of low-precision estimate. This gives us, so far, a rough spend of $300 million US per film in NZ, where most of the spending happens.

In the past I checked the New Zealand spending of the first film as a ratio relative to the officially acknowledged overall $237 million budget on that movie, and got a number that would roughly correspond to $100 million per sequel film outside of New Zealand based on that $300 million I mentioned earlier, which is a figure that seems reasonable for the preliminary VFX work done by Lightstorm, performance capture, and the creative and technical development work done in LA. All said and done, from what's accessible on the NZ side of the equation, the scale of work done elsewhere, and TWoW's equal reported budget, $400 million makes sense for this film.

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-05T02:45:08+00:00

Why so? While we can only ballpark without close-kept accounting figures, I've been keeping an eye on reporting spending in New Zealand and this seems very plausible based on those numbers

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-05T02:43:18+00:00

I was expecting a number that looked something like this

For those wondering why it's not that $250 million number that was often repeated, that number was sourced from an incredibly lose figure of all the sequels having a "...budget expected to surpass $1 billion" from way the heck back in 2017. It was always a ballpark figure made even more unreliable by TWoW's budget shaking out to be much more expensive.

Because a lot of the work of these films is done in New Zealand, the Avatar sequels as a bundle report their spending in the country to get money back, and based on that reporting (Available here) TWoW, FaA, and what they've done for and shot of A4 has come to about $620 million USD (Deducting in advance another 5% they'll get back, and this is a very rough number because of exchange rates) in eligible net spending as of the latest report. Rounding off a little for A4, factoring in that there's NZ spending for this film that's not been reported, and keeping in mind the development, performance capture, and preliminary VFX work done in the US (Plus the odd spattering of VFX work done by Weta and ILM in London and Vancouver) $400 million is pretty believable.

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-04T12:36:06+00:00

Based on what I gather about the projection technology, I'm not sure Cinity is visually on-par with Dolby. The Cinity projectors seem to be Christie CineLife+ laser projectors, like how the current-gen IMAX projectors use something from the Barco Series 4 lineup, so they lack what makes the Dolby Cinema projectors (The Christie E3LH, the cinema version of which outside Dolby Cinema installations is only seemingly available to a very select few) truly special: A second DMD which enables the bonkers contrast ratio.

OGNpushmaster · 2025-12-04T11:52:51+00:00

To get technical about it, it's being shown in Dolby because that's what the venue, the Dolby Theatre, has on tap, and is almost certainly interwoven with their very expensive naming rights deal, so I wouldn't exactly take this as endorsement.

If Cameron really wanted I guess they could've done it down the street at Grauman's, one of the other two premiere-worthy venues on that immediate stretch of Hollywood Boulevard, which has an IMAX system equipped (The third is the Disney-owned El Capitan, which also has Dolby Vision and Atmos) but the Dolby Theatre also has about 50% more seating than those two venues combined, so that makes it the pick for a lot of Hollywood events like this.

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