The highest grossing film of all time is getting the sequel and three-quel treatment within the next five years.  Today Twentieth Century Fox announced that visionary director James Cameron will take on Avatar 2 & 3 as his next two films.  Cameron will begin writing the script for the sequel “early next year” and production will begin “later in 2011.”  He may shoot the films back-to-back, but he will not make this decision until both scripts are finalized.  The sequel is targeted for a December 2014 release, and the third film will follow one year later in 2015.

Though Cameron was looking forward to shooting Cleopatra with Angelina Jolie in 2012, he is very excited to get the opportunity to plunge back into Pandora and consume himself with its inhabitants over the next five years.  “It is a rare and remarkable opportunity when a filmmaker gets to build a fantasy world, and watch it grow, with the resources and partnership of a global media company. AVATAR was conceived as an epic work of fantasy – a world that audiences could visit, across all media platforms, and this moment marks the launch of the next phase of that world. With two new films on the drawing boards, my company and I are embarking on an epic journey with our partners at Twentieth Century Fox. Our goal is to meet and exceed the global audience’s expectations for the richness of AVATAR’s visual world and the power of the storytelling. In the second and third films, which will be self contained stories that also fulfill a greater story arc, we will not back off the throttle of AVATAR’s visual and emotional horsepower, and will continue to explore its themes and characters, which touched the hearts of audiences in all cultures around the world. I’m looking forward to returning to Pandora, a world where our imaginations can run wild.”

[Via Deadline]