Avatar Sequel Won't Arrive Until Late 2017 Says James Cameron

Instead of writing one Avatar sequel at a time, director James Cameron ambitiously chose to write three sequels at the same time. He's not alone, he's getting help writing all three sequels from screenwriters Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno. But even with their help Cameron doesn't think the first Avatar sequel will be ready for its original late 2016 release date and has decided to push its release to late 2017.

"We're writing three simultaneously. And we've done that so that everything tracks throughout the three films. We're not just going to do one and then make up another one and another one after that," Cameron told the AP in Wellington, New Zealand while promoting the local film industry. "And parallel with that, we're doing all the design. So we've designed all the creatures and the environments."

Cameron believes he and his team of writers will complete all three scripts by the end of this month. He said his goal was have each film link to the next one, but he doesn't want link them with cliffhangers.

Hopefully this will be the last delay Avatar 2 incurs. If that's the case and the film does come out in late 2017 you can then expect the next two sequels over consecutive years.

AVATAR takes us to a spectacular new world beyond our imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery, as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization. The film was first conceived by Cameron 14 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not yet exist. Now, after four years of actual production work, AVATAR delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film, disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.