‘Avatar 3’ will see the return of two fan-favorite characters

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Avatar: The Way of Water.

It looks like two of James Cameron’s characters from the most recent installment in the Avatar franchise are already slated to return for the unreleased third film, and we couldn’t be more excited.

Now that you’ve been warned — Payakan, the Tulkun companion of Jake and Neytiri’s son Lo’ak, is going to be swimming back onto the big screen in all his whale-like glory. The story of Lo’ak and Payakan’s unlikely friendship happened to be one of the most profound subplots of the entire film, and fans everywhere couldn’t help but fall in love with this dynamic duo.

The film’s producer John Landau, in an interview with Empire, confirmed Payakan’s eventual return with a quick quote.

“We will continue to explore his (Payakan’s) relationship with Lo’ak.”

Payakan not only helped Lo’ak navigate the trials of young adulthood, but through his tragic backstory and redemption, he was able to kick some serious butt in the process. One of those butts happened to belong to Brendan Cowell’s Mick Scoresby, the despicable Tulkun hunter selling their harvested brain-goop for crazy amounts of mullah.

To our dismay — or anticipation — Scoresby happens to be the other confirmed character set to make a comeback in the third film. Regardless of the outcome though, a Payakan-Scoresby rematch will definitely be worth the price of admission. If you remember, Payakan was responsible for cleaving off Scoresby’s arm near the end of The Way of Water, so there’s definitely a score to settle.

Although, technically, Scorebsy did shoot off Payakan’s fin in a failed whaling attempt — so he kind of had it coming, right? Here’s hoping that next time Payakan takes more than an arm.