James Cameron's "Avatar" business doesn't have an official motto, but perhaps the King of the World should consider something like "slow and steady wins the race."
In a New York Times feature profile about Cameron's purchase of 2,500 acres of land at New Zealand's Lake Pounui, the director revealed that "Avatar 2" will probably arrive in theaters sometime after 2015, with part three arriving after that. Moreover, reports of "Avatar 4" are a bit "premature," though Cameron "hasn't ruled it out," according to the Times.
For those "Avatar" fans obsessively following the development process of the sequels, none of this is too surprising. "Avatar 2" was initially set to hit theaters in 2014, but but that was recently pushed back to 2016 -- at the earliest. The 2015 date that Cameron cites is actually an improvement on that timeline. Cameron is planning to work on the scripts for the films in the fall after he moves his family to New Zealand. (That story is wild and Pandora-like in its own right; click over to the Times to read more.)
As for the fourth "Avatar" film, perhaps Cameron hasn't ruled it out since he's the person who brought up the idea of it in the first place.
"I’m making 'Avatar 2,' 'Avatar 3,' maybe 'Avatar 4,'" Cameron told the Times during an interview about the Chinese film industry back in May. "I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts."
That's good, because he'll likely be busy over the next decade bringing the "Avatar" universe back to theaters. The first film grossed $2.7 billion worldwide, so expect Twentieth Century Fox -- the studio that distributed "Avatar" -- to be very patient with Cameron during the process.
For more on his New Zealand relocation, head over to the Times.
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