After revealing the title for Avatar 3 at Disney's D23 fan convention this past weekend, director James Cameron and his stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña unpack the meaning behind Avatar: Fire and Ash.

"It took a long time to come up with a title that I felt resonated with what's in the film," Cameron explains to Entertainment Weekly during an interview conducted at D23. "I don't think I could say too much about it until you actually see the film and you see what it means, but if you think of fire as hatred, anger, violence, that sort of thing, and ash is the aftermath. So what's the aftermath? Grief, loss, right? And then what does that cause in the future? More violence, more anger, more hatred. It's a vicious cycle. So that's the thinking."

2022's Avatar: The Way of Water picked up 16 years after the events of 2009's Avatar, introducing audiences to the family of Worthington's Jake Sully and Saldaña's Neytiri, as well as the water-dwelling Na'vi of the Metkayina clan. Speaking of grief and loss, that movie's climactic ending, featuring a battle against Stephen Lang's Col. Miles Quaritch and the colonizing RDA, saw the Sullys grappling with the death of their son, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters).

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"I wouldn't call it dark film. I think it goes to darker places than the previous ones did, but it's still obviously this open, glorious, grand adventure, which is what we aspire to do every time we set out," Cameron tells EW of the next chapter in the Avatar saga. "But we're not afraid to go into the dark places of our characters, which I think is also good. I think that's also what people really feel they want when they get to know a character well, either through a series or whatever it is that they follow. They want to know more. They want to know more about them, find out what their limits are, so to speak. And we do that."

There's also a more literal explanation behind the title of the third movie. Jake vowed to remain with the Metkayina and continue fighting the RDA, but Avatar: Fire and Ash will bring audiences inside another biome of the planet Pandora. Game of Thrones alum Oona Chaplin will play Varang, the leader of the Ash People, described by the late franchise producer Jon Landau as "an aggressive, volcanic race" of Na'vi.

"There are good humans, and there are bad humans. It's the same thing on the Na'vi side," Landau previously teased of the Ash People. "Oftentimes, people don't see themselves as bad. What is the root cause of how they evolve into what we perceive as bad? Maybe there are other factors there that we aren't aware of."

Confirmed to return for Avatar: Fire and Ash alongside Worthington, Saldaña, and Chaplin are Sigourney Weaver as Kiri, Jake and Neytiri's adopted daughter with extraordinary gifts; Lang as Quaritch; Kate Winslet as Ronal, spiritual leader of the Metkayina; Cliff Curtis as Tonowari, the other leader of the Metkayina; Jack Champion as Spider, the biological human son of the original Quaritch who now lives with the Sullys; Britain Dalton as Lo'ak, Jake and Neytiri's surviving son; Trinity Bliss as Tuk, Jake and Neytiri's daughter; and Bailey Bass as Tsireya, the daughter of Ronal and Tonowari.

Cameron, however, confirmed Michelle Yeoh's debut as Dr. Karina Mogue won't arrive until the untitled Avatar 4.

"I like the fact that we are not doing the same thing with these characters," Worthington tells EW. "We are exploring the unexpected, and that's exciting, not only for us to go on that journey, but then to take audiences on that journey with us."

Avatar: Fire and Ash is set to open in theaters Dec. 19, 2025, while Avatar 4 is scheduled four years later on Dec. 21, 2029, and Avatar 5 is scheduled two years after that on Dec. 19, 2031. Cameron says the cadence between films "will get tighter and tighter" than the 13-year gap between the first and second installments.

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"There'll be just far enough apart that they remain events, hopefully, in the lives of fans, of people who want to follow us, but not so far apart that it's like there's a generational difference between one movie," he says. "We're fortunate we survived that, right? We got over that hurdle. So now we believe it's going to come at the right pacing."

—With additional reporting by Sydney Bucksbaum.