This weekend I brought you part 1 and part 2 of my extended conversation with Wētā VFX Supervisor Eric Saindon and Animation Supervisor Daniel Barrett, about their Oscar-nominated worked on James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash. Today brings the third and final portion of that in-depth and revelatory interview.
Sam Worthington stars in “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
Source: Disney
Avatar: Fire and Ash – By The Numbers
As expected, Avatar: Fire and Ash grossed $7 million stateside and enough overseas to push the film’s total worldwide box office closer to $1.4 billion this weekend. Notably, the film’s international sales topped $1 billion.
Zootopia 2 now appears to have a big enough lead to retain the #2 spot on 2025’s box office charts, with $1.74 billion and counting. The enormous $1.3 billion international share of that gross is driven largely by Asia-Pacific markets turning out in droves – more than half of the Disney animated blockbuster’s box office comes from that region, and the film is a cultural phenom in China. Zootopia 2 is now the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, besides Ne Zha 2 at $2.26 billion and still counting.
But Avatar: Fire and Ash should finish around $1.5 billion, a strong showing good enough for the #3 spot on 2025 charts and enough to guarantee audiences are still in love with the franchise and will show up in blockbuster numbers.
I’ve said before, keep the runtime closer to the previous two films, keep focus on exploring the world of Pandora through the eyes of the family so kids and parents alike want to come back for repeat viewings, and Avatar 4 and 5 will likely see their fortunes rise toward $2 billion and beyond again.
Avatar: Fire and Ash – The Interview
Here is the final part of my extended interview with Wētā VFX Supervisor Eric Saindon and Animation Supervisor Daniel Barrett about the spectacular Oscar-nominated visual effects work of Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Having discussed so much of the specific effects and animation work in the new film, the innovations, and how Cameron approaches these collaborations, I next wanted to talk about the Avatar team’s work on other films and their impressions of filmmaking, VFX, and other franchises, and whether this is all leading us to a cinematic future where truly anything and everything is possible…
MH: So now I’m wondering, at the point you have figured out the math around water spray and bubbles… we’ve said for a while now that you can do anything now [with CGI and with visual effects], but how close are we?
Because, look, I’m also obsessed with the Planet of the Apes films, the new quadrilogy of films, and those films, particularly Dawn and War for the Planet of the Apes, and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Looking at these films, I feel like if you have the time and the money, and if you’ve got the right team, obviously, there’s nothing you can’t do now. Would you say that we’re there, or close?
Lydia Peckham and Owen Teague star in “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.”
Source: 20th Century Studios
ES: I think we’re probably there.
But I think the way Jim thinks about it is, if the visual effects isn’t for a reason, if it’s not for the story and you’re just putting a whole bunch of visual effects on the screen, what’s the point, right? Like, everything, every shot needs to be part of the story or a reason for the story.
And I mean, for our movie, it’s in the future on a planet billions of miles [away]– I don’t know, however many miles away it is, or light years. So there’s very little we can actually shoot for it. We do what we can.
But like the Planet of the Apes, that’s a great example, because they can go out and shoot plates for a lot of that and then add what they need to into it, and then really just enhance the story with those elements.
So I think you can do anything now, but I don’t think you should. I think you should do it where you need to, and do it where a live-action element can’t be used.
I mean, even Jim got in there and we shot, like, where Quaritch rolls that girl’s head over, the one that got her kuru cut off, we shot someone’s foot doing that. And there’s all kinds of little inserts we did of real hands where we could, or real elements where we could, just to ground it all a little bit.
And sometimes we didn’t use it. Don’t tell Jim [laughs]. Sometimes we shot those elements and never used them. They were great reference, but we never ended up using them, because they were harder to use and harder to integrate than actually just recreating it in CG. I think we could, but I don’t think we should.
MH: I love the new Planet of the Apes movies. And this movie reminds me a lot of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the second of those films and my personal favorite.
Avatar: Fire and Ash reminds me a lot of that movie, and of The Dark Knight. Not just tone, I mean visually too. There’s a lot more shadow, I think, in this movie than the previous two? This could just be an impression because of thematically how the movie hit me, but it felt like there were a lot more nighttime scenes… or scenes with the eclipse and a lot more play with shadow and light, with characters moving in and out of shadow and light.
I can’t remember offhand, I thought one of you or both of you worked on one of the Planet of the Apes films, yes?
ES: Dan did.
DB: Yeah, I did Rise, Dawn, and War.
MH: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is in my personal top 5 favorite movies of all time. That’s how high my esteem for it is, and I became an obsessive Matt Reeves fan from it.
DB: Working on two [Dawn], because Rupert Wyatt did the 1st one, but working on Dawn with him I became an obsessive Matt Reeds fan as well. He’s a he’s a wonderful guy. Great director.
MH: I mean, he was shooting like, “We’re going to shoot outside in the forest. We’re going to use natural daylight. Oh, can you put a bunch of talking apes in it?” And it’s like, how do you even– you know, it’s amazing and I love that.
I don’t want to segue off topic, but I interviewed Reeves for that movie and I said, “You’ve got to get the Batman franchise someday. You’re the guy.” And from then on, every time I wrote a Forbes article about anything he did I was like, “Give him Batman!”
DB: Yeah, yeah, that’s all come true.
MH: His approach to the visual effects reminds me, to get back to Cameron’s approach and the way different filmmakers approach it, did y’all work on Guardians of the Galaxy?
ES: Wētā did, but not either of us.
MH: Well, James Gunn and Cameron remind me a lot of one another, in terms of their preparation and the detail and being like, “I know how I want this to look exactly, but I’m also going to work with my team,” and the absolute trust he has and the collaborative nature of getting everything on screen like that.
I feel like, there’s filmmakers you can look at and tell who has that kind of relationship with their teams and who doesn’t. And y’all have worked with some of like the best people who really have that.
It makes me mindful again.
ES: We’ve been very lucky. That’s for sure.
MH: So, Cameron mentioned that he had shot some of the fourth Avatar movie… I don’t know if you can say anything at all about it, but I’m wondering if you were actually working on three movies at the same time, some of the time, or if that’s all separate and none of the visual and animation effects have gotten started on it yet?
ES: Nothing’s really gotten started. There was some live action shots, for this same reason, that Jack Champion is getting older. So there was there was some live action shot for the movie.
And Jim has a story, has a script and all those things for several more movies, I think. I’ve never read them, to be honest. I never want to go too far ahead, because for example, if I’m not going to work on the next one for some reason then I want to be able to watch it and see it fresh. So if I’m going to work on it, I’ll read it. But if not, I want to go fresh and not have the story ruined for me.
DB: I’m with you, Eric. I had exactly the same experience with Kingdom. You know, I’d done the three Apes films and then Avatar came along and I’m like, well yeah, I’m absolutely going to do that.
And then Kingdom comes in, so all of a sudden, it was sort of like that was my baby, and I wasn’t there, and I made that decision as well. Didn’t look at a thing. Didn’t look at a thing. And it was just such a joy just to go to that film, you know, as an audience member. Hadn’t poked my nose in anywhere, hadn’t seen anything, and just really enjoyed watching the film.
Sample images of fire and flamethrower VFX of “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”
Source:Wētā FX
MH: I turned down a couple of set visit opportunities on films because– and it felt insane at the time, but I was like, it’s going to ruin watching the movie for me.
I did some set visits for the Justice League movie and some other films, and then seeing it in theaters I still enjoy them, but when you’ve seen [behind the curtain] and then you’re watching it on screen, you’re aware of what it actually looks like and stuff’s, and [in those scenes] I get into my “work” mindset versus just being a pure movie viewer. So I was like “I don’t want to visit the sets, no.” [Laughs]
ES: Yeah. We do the same. Even at the premiere, it still feels like work.
Now I’ve gone and watched it again with the kids and things like that, and it’s far enough away now that I can sort of separate it and I just sit and enjoy the movie.
But the first couple of times you’re like, “Oh I remember shooting that shot in live action and how this one happened,” and all these other things. So it’s hard to separate once you know the behind the scenes.
MH: So I have this question about another film, as visual effects and animation experts. The sequel to Godzilla Minus One is coming out, and I was a huge fan of that film. I watched all the behind the scenes and making-of, and I interviewed writer-director Takashi Yamazaki, and I’m really looking forward to the sequel.
So I’m wondering, it sounds like he’s got a bit bigger budget… and I just would like your reactions and thoughts. Are y’all eager to see what he’s going to do next, and doing effects and animation yourselves what do you think about what was done in the previous film and what’s possible next?
ES: It’s one of those [cases] where, there’s a lot of directors out there that they make they make their first movie and it has some visual effects, but it’s not a big visual effects movie, but they tell a great story. I don’t want to name any movies, but they’ll not show the monster too much, because it’s expensive to have visual effects of the monster, right? So they make a story around it, and then you see glimpses of this and glimpses of that, and something else happens. And it makes a really great show, or series or movie or whatever.
But then it’s successful, and then they get more money, and they spend more on visual effects, and more visual effects, and it becomes… a big visual effects thing, right? Like it becomes extravagant, it becomes this big explosions and all this other crap that happens, and it takes away from the storytelling.
I think, like the Transformers movies sort of did that to a certain extent. The first Transformers was really good back in the day. And if you really go back and look at it, it didn’t really have a lot of visual effects, it was more of a story, and it had some [effects], and then as they went along it just became more and more and more, and it just became this over-the-top thing. It took away from the story. It was no longer about the story, it was more about just “How big can we make the explosions? How big can we make these things?”
I’m hoping that after Godzilla Minus One he (Takashi-san) sticks to his way of telling stories. He has Godzilla, but he doesn’t overdo it, he just tells a great story, and Godzilla is just part of that story. So I’m hoping he sticks to exactly the same way he did it.
MH: And it’s coming out this year in November.
ES: That’s awesome. It’s gonna be a big year for movies.
MH: I get what you mean, and that’s the difference in what you’re doing in these films. You invite us and the films invite us into this new world and say, look at this– the films invite us in and explore this world.
It’s amazing, but it’s not because, “We got twenty extra million dollars, so here, look at this!” It’s because that’s what the story is. So the visual effects happened because that’s what is needed to do, as opposed to, “We made a bunch of money last time, if we put more money–” And that’s [what happens] when executives and studios are trying to tell the story, instead of filmmakers and artists, right? That’s what it really is. People who think “Audiences just want to see blow up, blow up, blow up, they want to see CGI, just give them that.” They never learn, right?
DB: Yeah, you actually look at you look at the film, like the Avatars, and films like the Avatars, I don’t know what the proportion is, but a large proportion of a healthy budget goes into creating the performances. So trying to create realism and performances in order to tell the story, so both the characters and the story draw the audience in.
So it’s not spectacle, even though there’s plenty of amazing spectacle, and everybody should see it on IMAX and 3D. But a huge amount of it is just about that, about the characters and story.
Thanks to Wētā VFX Supervisor Eric Saindon and Animation Supervisor Daniel Barrett for speaking with about the magic they worked on Avatar: Fire and Ash. Be sure to read Part 1 and Part 2 of this extensive interview.