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Disney reportedly has a plan to encourage repeat viewings of Avatar: Fire and Ash in theaters — and it involves four different Avengers: Doomsday trailers.
Amid intense speculation that Avengers: Doomsday will finally get its debut trailer this month a full year before its December 18, 2026 release date, The Hollywood Reporter said Disney plans to roll out four different Avengers: Doomsday trailers over the course of four weeks, with each enjoying a run in theaters for seven days before being replaced by the next. And it’s all — allegedly — designed to get bums on seats for Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Avatar: Fire and Ash has a December 19 release date, so if THR is right about this, we’ll have our first Avengers: Doomsday trailer in just a few days. Marvel declined to comment.
Rumors had swirled around online about the Avengers: Doomsday trailer being tied to Avatar: Fire and Ash in some way, but this would certainly be a unique rollout. Now, fans are speculating about how this might work. Some are suggesting each trailer will revolve around a different superhero team (The Avengers, The New Avengers / Thunderbolts, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men). But it could be a lot less interesting than that and the trailer may simply be ever so slightly changed week-on-week, with a few extra shots here and there.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is of course a crucial release for Disney. The special effects-heavy Avatar films cost a huge amount of money to produce, but they have historically made billions of dollars at the box office. Avatar: Fire and Ash is expected to follow suit — and the pressure is on it to deliver for Disney so director James Cameron can realize his vision and release Avatar 4 and 5 over the next six years.
But Cameron has sounded words of caution recently. Speaking on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast, Cameron admitted he was feeling nervous about Avatar: Fire and Ash’s box office performance, and was mindful of the “forces” working against theatrical releases in 2025.
There’s the potential for “sequelitis,” Cameron noted. “People tend to dismiss sequels unless it’s the third Lord of the Rings film and you want to see what happens to everybody, which in my mind this is — this is the culmination of a story arc, but that may not be how the public sees it.” And there’s the “one-two punch” of streaming and Covid, which means fewer people are going to the movies — 75% of the number in 2019, Cameron suggested.
When pressed on how much Avatar: Fire and Ash cost to make, Cameron wouldn’t be drawn into divulging a figure, only suggesting it was a lot of money, and so the movie will have to make a lot of money to turn a profit. “It is one metric f**k ton of money, which means we have to make two metric f**k tons of money to make a profit,” he said. “I have no doubt in my mind that this movie will make money. The question is, does it make enough money to justify doing it again?”
Well, one way to help with that is to show four different Avengers: Doomsday trailers ahead of screenings of Avatar: Fire and Ash for a month!
On the issue of Avatar’s box office, Cameron admitted he was “absolutely” ready to walk away from Avatar if Fire and Ash flops. “I’ve been in Avatar land for 20 years,” he said. “Actually 30 years because I wrote it in ‘95, but I wasn’t working continuously on it for those first 10 years. Yeah, absolutely, sure. If this is where it ends, cool.”
As for Avatar: Doomsday, last week a listing for a trailer popped up on the Korean Ratings Board with a runtime of 1 minute and 25 seconds. It sounds like it won’t be long until we finally get a sense of what to expect from the film.
Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
