Director James Cameron has already confirmed that Stephen Lang will be returning for the the three planned sequels to his 2009 megahit Avatar, and now comes word that the original’s leads have been secured as well.

It’s being reported that both Sam Worthington, who plays Jake Sully, and Zoe Saldana, who plays Neytiri, have finalized their deals to return for Avatar 2, Avatar 3, and Avatar 4.

Director James Cameron says Stephen Lang, the actor who played Colonel Miles Quaritch in 2009’s Avatar, will return for the sequels. All three of them, which Cameron plans to shoot together and begin releasing in 2016.

Quaritch is one of the villains in the original movie who leads the private security team tasked with protecting and clearing the way for the company mining valuable natural resources from the moon named Pandora, which causes damage to the lands of the Na’vi, a humanoid species that makes their home on the moon.

Yesterday, we learned that Terminator: The Sarah Chronicles creator Josh Friedman was tapped to write the sequel to James Cameron‘s long-gestating sequel to Avatar. This was the first real sign that production was moving forward for the film.

Now comes word that Cameron isn’t only bringing in Friedman, but multiple other screenwriters to work on not one, but three sequels. Avatar 2, Avatar 3, and Avatar 4 will be shot simultaneously starting next year, and Avatar 2 will hit theaters December 2016.

Just in case you were wondering, Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 are still in development, or lack thereof. Director James Cameron has promised that the first sequel to the top box office grossing film will take us to the oceans of Pandora. It’s an environment that Cameron is clearly fond of; his deep sea exploration of Mariana’s Trench shows just how passionate the director is.

The underwater setting does have its complications though. Getting the characters to interact with the underwater environment the way he wants to is one of the biggest problems. But film producer Jon Landau believes that he has found a way to overcome that problem. Rather than simulate scenes in the oceans without actually capturing the actor’s experience of them being underwater, Landau confirms that they will use the motion-capture technology in a tank.

Battle Angel fans won’t be happy with what James Cameron could possibly direct after the Avatar sequels. Despite some of the difficulties that he has experienced writing the Avatar sequels, Cameron has just purchased the rights to Taylor Stevens‘ The Informationist. THR was the first to report on Cameron’s latest acquisition, but without actually knowing which direction Cameron is headed towards after the Avatar sequels, it will be hard to know if he will direct Battle Angel first or if he will direct The Informationist first.

Check out a short synopsis of Stevens’ series of novels and a couple of quotes from the press release below.