James Cameron Hires Writers to Script Three 'Avatar' Sequels ... They're Writing Plots This Time?

Avatar is one of the most over-rated and empty movies of the last ten years. The fact that it was nominated at the Oscars for Best Picture and was actually considered the favorite at one point should be an embarrassment to anyone who loves movies. Avatar's only redeeming element was the revolutionary 3D presentation that James Cameron spent years developing. Unfortunately, Cameron spent little time on the movie's plot, borrowing heavily from Pocahontas, Fern Gully, Dances with Wolves and even the Smurfs. If you didn't see Avatar in 3D in theaters, you never had a reason to actually see it.

All of that said, Avatar did gross $2.78 billion worldwide, so of course Cameron is hard at work getting ready to churn out a bunch of sequels. While the director's original plan had been for two more Avatar films, Fox announced on Thursday that the plan had expanded to three sequels. It appears they have the entire to actually write plots for these movies this time around, as Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and Shane Salerno (Shaft and Savages) have been brought on to script them. With the exception of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes pair, those names don't really give me much hope for the quality we should expect in the Avatar sequels.

There had been talk awhile ago that Cameron planned on doing two sequels and prequel, so I'm not sure if this is the same thing and some outlets are just reporting all three additional installments as sequels or if Cameron has actually changed his vision for the franchise.

If these Avatar sequels can stay on schedule (which they have so far failed to do), the first sequel is due to hit theaters in December 2016, with the next two following in 2017 and 2018.