Avatar 2 Not Coming Until After 2018, James Cameron Says

Earlier this year, film company Fox listed an untitled movie from James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment for December 2018, suggesting that the first of the Avatar sequels, Avatar 2, could be released then. However, that does not appear to be the case.

"Well, 2018 is not happening," Cameron said in an interview with the Toronto Star (via The Hollywood Reporter). "We haven't announced a firm release date. What people have to understand is that this is a cadence of releases."

Cameron said you shouldn't think of the sequel as Avatar 2 because he's planning to shoot the second, third, fourth, and fifth installments at the same time.

"So we're not making Avatar 2," he said. "We're making Avatar 2, 3, 4 and 5. It's an epic undertaking. It's not unlike building the Three Gorges dam. (Laughs) So I know where I'm going to be for the next eight years of my life."

Cameron added: "It's not an unreasonable time frame if you think about it. It took us four-and-a-half years to make one movie and now we're making four. We're full tilt boogie right now. This is my day job and pretty soon we'll be 24-7. We're pretty well designed on all our creatures and sets. It's pretty exciting stuff. I wish I could share with the world. But we have to preserve a certain amount of showmanship and we're going to draw that curtain when the time is right."

Also in the interview, Cameron said you shouldn't expect Avatar 2 to have an Atlantis theme. This came up because Cameron is working on the new documentary Atlantis Rising, in which he and Simcha Jacobovici try to find the lost city.

"Probably not," Cameron said about the next Avatar having "echoes" of Atlantis. "The Avatar films are very specific about certain themes. In a very broad sense if you stand way back, Avatar is about human hubris and how we use up the resources of our world and try to take it over. The Avatar films are about our sense that we can dominate nature, when we should really learn to be a part of nature. Or we simply won't survive. So there are thematic connections."

Star Sam Worthington said this year that he's seen the scripts for the new Avatar movies, and said the first sequel is "going to be like nothing you've ever seen."

Worthington went on to emphasize the "family" aspect that Cameron has previously spoken about. "This is going to be Jake [Sully, Worthington's character] eight years later, and he's got a family now'" he said. "The world is bigger than the first one, but essentially, it's a movie about family.

While it sounds like we'll have to wait a while longer for Avatar 2, new Avatar-themed attractions are opening at Disney World in May.