The Avatar sequels have been pushed back so many times it’s hard to even remember that there ever was an Avatar film to begin with. So the anticipation for said sequels may have waned a bit. Still, that hasn’t stopped James Cameron from pursuing these sequels. He has been working on the technology to perfect the visuals while also polishing the script. But now it looks like he is finally ready to head into production. The filmmaker has announced the release dates for all four sequels and released the first image of production. Check it out here below.

At some point in time enough is enough. Avatar 2 has been pushed back more times than anyone can count. And yet, every time there’s word it gets pushed back to a later date, we are supposed to take it as a shock. So, once again, Avatar 2 won’t be able to make its release date, which was supposed to be sometime in 2018.

Director James Cameron spoke to The Sun about teaming up with Israeli-Canadian journalist Simcha Jacobovici on a documentary to see if the lost city of Atlantis exists. During the interview, the subject of Avatar 2 came up, and that’s when Cameron gave the disappointing news.

Back in 2009, James Cameron released Avatar, a tiny IMAX film that practically revolutionized visual effects. Since then, he and 20th Century Fox announced that there would be three sequels that would be released in the coming years. However, Avatar 2 has experienced quite a few delays in the past, forcing these release dates to be pushed back. And now the sequel is experiencing yet another not-so-surprising delay as reports are coming in that Avatar 2 won’t be facing Star Wars: Episode VIII in a mega geek showdown for box office glory.

The latest delay comes after Disney announced that they are pushing back the release of Star Wars: Episode VIII by seven months from its May 2017 release to December 2017, just a few days before Avatar 2‘s Christmas Day release. More on the story below.

The thing about James Cameron‘s Avatar is that you hardly ever hear anyone talk about it now. Surely the planned sequels would have generated public interest, but all anyone involved in the production has done so far was dodge questions, tease, or just say more movies are coming. There is no denying that the 2009 film was visually stunning and was a box office smash, so it makes sense to see more of the world of Pandora through more sequels, three to be exact. While we knew that the three sequels would be shot in one production, with the first scheduled for a December 2016 release and the other two following in 2017 and 2018 respectively, not has been revealed about the development of the franchise.

Now, Cameron has revealed that he is pushing the release date of the first sequel to 2017 because they need more time, as the writing process for the project is “very involved.”

Most of the time when we are told that a movie will blow us away by its director, it tends to be a bit of an overblown reaction. Maybe their expectations are too high or it’s just another marketing strategy to get people to watch the film. But for James Cameron there is a specific reason for him to get audiences amped up. Especially for a film like Avatar. Now, Avatar isn’t universally loved by all, but a lot of people can agree that the visuals set the standard for high quality visual effects and has done so much for motion capture technology.

Cameron is currently working on three Avatar sequels, but production for those films have yet to start. While we wait for cameras to roll, the director is speaking out about what we will see, and according to him, we will “shit” ourselves. He also addressed the frame rate for the film. Hit the jump for more.