Fast & Furious star Vin Diesel won't be appearing in an Avatar movie

He visited the set back in 2019.

By Jess Bacon

17 Jan 2023

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Vin Diesel will not appear in the upcoming Avatar movies.

Back in 2019, the Fast & Furious star visited James Cameron’s set and expressed how much he wanted to work with the Academy Award-winning director.

Later that year at the Avengers: Endgame world premiere, Diesel seemed to confirm to Entertainment Tonight that he would play a part in the world of Pandora alongside Guardians of the Galaxy co-star Zoe Saldaña.

"Probably my favourite in the whole cast [and] the closest in my family is Zoe Saldaña," he explained. "Hence Avatar. Hence why I'm doing Avatar, or one of the reasons."

While the actor didn’t disclose his role in the films, this comment fuelled the rumours that he would appear in one of the four planned science-fiction instalments.

However, this doesn't appear to be the case. Producer Jon Landau has cleared the air about this long-running rumour and said that Diesel was never even in talks to join the cast.

In a recent interview, Landau told Empire: "Vin was a fan. He came in, visited the set one day to see what we were doing and people took that out of context."

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Instead, it seems that he was visiting his close friend Saldaña, who plays the lead role of Neytiri, a fearsome Na’vi who is married to human-turned-Avatar Jake Sully.

Saldaña and Sam Worthington returned to their iconic roles for sequel Avatar: The Way of Water in December, which is on track to beat Spider-Man: No Way Home at the box office.

The sequel, which was 13 years in the making, is the first of four new Avatar movies that are scheduled to be released over the next few years.

20th Century Studios

While the plot for the third movie has not been confirmed, Cameron has teased that it will explore two new Na’vi cultures.

"Fire has a symbolic purpose in the film and there’s a culture that is specifically around that concept. That’s probably saying too much as we speak," he revealed to Deadline.

"You’re going to meet two completely new cultures in the next film. We met the Omaticaya, we met the Metkayina, and you’re going to meet two new cultures in the next film, and it kind of rove a little more freely around the world of Pandora to different places."

Avatar: The Way of Water is now playing in cinemas worldwide. The first film is streaming on Disney+.