Avatar: The Way of Water star Giovanni Ribisi explains the massive scale of what's coming next for the Avatar franchise. For over half a decade, the original 2009 film was the highest-grossing domestic movie of all time, though it has most recently been knocked down to #4 on that chart by the gargantuan theatrical run of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Fans have patiently awaited the promised follow-up, which director James Cameron originally announced back in 2010. Despite this huge delay, original actors Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, CCH Pounder, and Matt Gerald will be returning, with everyone but Sigourney Weaver reprising their original Avatar roles.
In the franchise, Ribisi — who is a character actor best known for his work on Sneaky Pete, Ted, and Friends — plays the role of Parker Selfridge. Selfridge is the Resources Development Administration's corporate administrator for its unobtanium mining outfit on the planet Pandora. In the original film, he is reluctant to follow corporate orders to enact violence on the native population, the Na'Vi, but is nevertheless rather easily convinced to give the operation the green light.
Screen Rant had the opportunity to sit down with Ribisi when he was promoting his role in the Paramount+ biographical miniseries The Offer, which also stars Miles Teller, Matthew Goode, and Juno Temple and chronicles the making of the classic film The Godfather. When the topic turned to his return to the franchise after a decade, Ribisi exclaimed that he's "so excited" about the new Avatar films finally coming out. He teased the release dates of the first two sequels, detailing that "we're gonna do 4 and 5 after that." Read the full quote below:
I'm so excited about the new Avatar films coming out. 2, I think is coming out this year, and then 3 is coming out the next year. And then we're gonna do 4 and 5 after that.
But yeah, it really takes what the first film was, and just takes it to a whole 'nother level. What they did - and I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of stories - is just as extraordinary as the first one.
One takeaway from this statement is that Selfridge is most likely in the franchise for the long haul. Ribisi has already been officially confirmed to appear in the two sequels which have already been filmed: Avatar: The Way of Water, which comes out on December 16, 2022, and its untitled follow-up Avatar 3, which is currently set for release on December 20, 2024. However, unless Ribisi is egregiously misusing the royal "we," he is set to return if and when production fully resumes on the promised Avatar 4 and 5.
Although there has been a massive delay in the production of Avatar: The Way of Water, it will clearly be heralding an equally massive wave of new material from the franchise. While it is far beyond anyone's abilities to begin to imagine what the plot of the franchise could be like once it gets past three entries, it is likely that Ribisi's character will get more and more complicated. He already began to show cracks in his corporate stooge exterior in the first film, so he may be at the shattering point before too long and helm an operation in opposition to RDA.
