Interview

Special/Visual Effects

How Weta FX Brought the Villainous Ash People to Life in James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash”

Weta FX brought James Cameron's terrifying Ash People to life in #AvatarFireAndAsh—from Varang's war paint to the Nightwraith creature design. VFX supervisors Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett break it down.

By Daron James  |  January 21, 2026

Interview

Costume Designer

Shaker Style: Małgorzata Karpiuk on Designing Amanda Seyfried’s Dance-Ready Wardrobe for “The Testament of Ann Lee” in 6 Weeks

Małgorzata Karpiuk, costume designer for "The Testament of Ann Lee," explains how she designed dance-ready period costumes for Amanda Seyfried and a cast of hundreds—all while navigating rainstorms, multiple countries, and a tight budget.

By Matt Minton  |  January 21, 2026

Interview

Composer

“The Testament of Ann Lee” Composer Daniel Blumberg on Collaborating with Amanda Seyfried for a Transcendent Score

Composer Daniel Blumberg recorded live with Amanda Seyfried for The Testament of Ann Lee, adapting Shaker hymns and collaborating with choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall to define moments of worship. "We really wanted it to be in the room, like raw, so you could hear the live quality of the voice."

By Daron James  |  January 20, 2026

Interview

Production Designer

“Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” Production Designer Stefania Cella on Her New Jersey Dream Tour

Bruce Springsteen's legacy is inseparable from New Jersey—so "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere" filmed across 14 NJ municipalities, spending $42M over 31 days. Production designer Stefania Cella sourced a vintage carousel, recreated the Stone Pony, and got access to Bruce's vault.

By Su Fang Tham  |  January 14, 2026

Interview

Director

How “Predator: Badlands” Director Dan Trachtenberg Embraced Fear For His Franchise-Best Vision

"Predator: Badlands" director Dan Trachtenberg on embracing his fear & making the franchise's highest-grossing film.

By Simon Thompson  |  January 14, 2026
The Wakandans Meet The Fantastic Four in New “Avengers: Doomsday” Teaser

Shuri (Letitia Wright) is ready to rumble in the new teaser for the Russo Brothers’ Avengers: DoomsdayConsidering all that Shuri lost the last time we saw her (in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), it makes sense that this teaser opens on a somber note. Her brother, T’Challa (the late, great Chadwick Boseman), and her mother, Ramonda (Angela Bassett), are both gone. In the teaser, we see not only her and her formidable fellow Wakandan,

By The Credits  |  January 13, 2026

Interview

Costume Designer

How Costume Designer Deborah L. Scott Dressed the Wind Traders and Ash People for “Avatar: Fire and Ash”

Four decades ago, Deborah L. Scott was on a plane to the middle of nowhere, Alaska, to design costumes for Carroll Ballard’s Never Cry Wolf (1983). The decision changed her career.

“As scared as I was, as ridiculous and unprepared as I probably looked, it was a good idea,” she shares with The Credits. “It’s ok to be unprepared, and stepping out of your comfort zone is good as an artist.” The project introduced her to Steven Spielberg and opened the door to E.T.

By Daron James  |  January 12, 2026

Interview

Composer

How Simon Franglen Brought Punk Energy and Mongolian Instruments to “Avatar: Fire and Ash”

The audible experience of an Avatar film is as ambitious as the groundbreaking visuals. With both familiar and otherworldly cues, composer Simon Franglen develops textured cues and themes that draw audiences into the story. Together with the sound effects, Franglen, his orchestra, and collaborators deliver another transportive score in James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash.

As vast as the world of Pandora is, the experience for Franglen scoring these mammoth spectacles is counterintuitively intimate.

By Jack Giroux  |  January 8, 2026

Interview

Actor

“Avatar: Fire and Ash” Scene-Stealer Oona Chaplin on Creating the Captivating, Vengeful Varang

If ever there was an actor more perfectly aligned with the ethos of James Cameron and the world of Pandora, it’s Oona Chaplin. Chaplin’s first conversation with Cameron revolved around biodynamic and organic farming. She is an activist and environmentalist whose humanitarian efforts span from Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Mexico, and beyond. She’s volunteered in refugee camps and supported film education for Saharawi refugees through the FiSahara Festival. 

In Avatar: Fire and Ash,

By Jack Giroux  |  January 6, 2026
“Avengers: Doomsday” Trailer Confirms Chris Evans Returning to the MCU as Steve Rogers

Well, well, well…just when you thought 2025 couldn’t possibly have any more tricks up its sleeve, the Russo Brothers have revealed, a few days before Christmas, that Chris Evans is returning to the MCU in Avengers: Doomsday. The new teaser is all Evans as Steve Rogers, arriving at a bucolic home on a motorcycle, the camera making sure you note his wedding band, and then following him into the house to a baby. 

By The Credits  |  December 23, 2025

Interview

Director, Editor, Stunt Coordinator/Stunt Person

How James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” Uses Practical Filmmaking You’ve Never Seen Before

It has been three years since Avatar: The Way of Water became the third-highest-grossing movie, with $2.3 billion worldwide. The much-anticipated third installment in James Cameron’s cinematic spectacle, Avatar: Fire and Ash, launched this past Friday, once again immersing audiences in the lush forests and pristine oceans of the exomoon Pandora. The epic sci-fi from 20th Century Studios picks up after Jake (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña),

By Su Fang Tham  |  December 22, 2025
Shawn Levy Celebrates “Star Wars: Starfighter” Wrapping Filming With New Image

It’s official—Star Wars: Starfighter has finished filming. We are that much closer to the first new Star Wars film since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, J.J. Abrams’ trilogy capper, which revealed that Rey (Daisy Ridley) is a direct descendant of Emperor Palpatine.

Director Shawn Levy shared the news on Instagram with a fresh look at himself—we’ve previously gotten a glimpse of Gosling and co-star Flynn Gray somewhere on the Mediterranean—running through an Inception-style corridor (he’s practically running on the wall).

By The Credits  |  December 19, 2025
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” Reactions Hail James Cameron’s Scorching Cinematic Spectacle

The first reactions to James Cameron’s third Avatar installment have arrived after the film had a handful of press screenings on Monday night. It seems that, once again, Cameron has delivered another stunningly ambitious epic.

Fire and Water arrives only a few years after the second film in the franchise, The Way of Water, thanks to the fact that Cameron and his team shot The Way of Water and Fire and Ash back-to-back.

By The Credits  |  December 2, 2025
“Moana” Live-Action Trailer Reveals Catherine Laga’aia & Dwayne Johnson’s Epic Adventure

The first look at Disney’s live-action Moana has taken to the high seas with a new swashbuckling trailer. Dwayne Johnson returns as Maui—now in the flesh after having voiced the character in the original 2016 animated blockbuster and the 2024 sequel Moana 2. He’s joined by Catherine Laga‘aia as the titular character (previously voiced by Auli‘i Cravalho), the adventurous teenager who, with Maui’s help, sets off on a daring quest to save her island home and her people.

By The Credits  |  November 18, 2025
“Predator: Badlands” Set to Roar Into Theaters With Rave Reviews, Making the Villain a Hero With a Plucky Sidekick

Director Dan Trachtenberg is in a serious role. After wowing audiences with his tightly constrained 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) and again with his nifty, beautifully shot Predator prequel Prey (2021), and now this year, his animated Predator: Killers of Killers, which enjoys a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. All this leads us to his current film, the live-action follow-up to Predator, 

By The Credits  |  November 5, 2025

Interview

Cinematographer

“Tron: Ares” Cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth on Shooting IMAX, Practical Effects, and Nine Inch Nails’ Influence

The third installment in the Tron series, which broke new ground in 1982 with a film set in the digital world, sees AI beings cross over from the grid into the physical realm. Directed by Joachim Rønning, Tron: Ares stars Jared Leto as Ares, an AI soldier generatively laser printed by Dillinger scion Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) to take on rival corporation Encom. Encom CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee) has cracked the permanence code,

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  October 14, 2025
The Heart of the Story: How Carlos Saldanha Went from Film Student to Animation Legend

Carlos Saldanha came to Busan with one chief piece of advice for the 24 emerging filmmakers gathered from across Asia for this year’s edition of the CHANEL X BIFF Asian Film Academy.

“Every minute counts on the journey towards your objective,” was the message, and the Brazilian filmmaker has crafted a remarkable career out of following that to the letter.

The driving force behind such global hits as Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), 

By The Credits  |  October 2, 2025
New “Mandalorian and Grogu” Images Reveal AT-ATs, Alien Creatures & Sigourney Weaver

We just got a look at the first trailer for director Jon Favreau’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, and now it’s time to parse a slew of new images from Favreau’s film. What we know about what Favreau, his co-writer Dave Filoni, and the rest of the stellar cast and crew have cooked up is scant, but the trailer is nonetheless revealing. There are creatures aplenty—mainly of the classic Star Wars type,

By The Credits  |  September 22, 2025
Baby Yoda Speaks in the First “The Mandalorian and Grogu” Trailer

The first trailer for director Jon Favreau’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu opens on Din Djarin’s (Pedro Pascal) spaceship the Razor Crest curising over a coastline. The next thing we see is one of those images that has made the Disney+ series The Mandalorian such a hit—we’ve got Mando and Baby Yoda doing some recon in a desert landscape, with the little guy sporting a little single-lens pair of binoculars to aid him.

By The Credits  |  September 22, 2025
“Star Wars: Starfighter”: New Look at Ryan Gosling & Flynn Gray in Cryptic Photo

Ryan Gosling and co-star Flynn Gray are ready to make waves in their upcoming film Star Wars: Starfighter. 

Director Shawn Levy posted a photo on Instagram of Gosling and Gray “somewhere in the Mediterranean,” according to Levy’s caption, although the geotag indicates “Sardinia, Italy.” It’s the second glimpse we’ve gotten of Gosling and the newcomer Gray since production began, after that first cryptic shot of Gosling and Gray sitting and leaning on a cruiser of some sort.

By The Credits  |  September 18, 2025