Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, 20^th Century Studios head Steve Asbell was asked about the status of the Avatar sequel, to which he confirms that it will release in 2022. “For real. It’s going to blow people away. You’re not ready for what Jim [Cameron] is doing,” he adds.

Seeing as it’s been more than a decade since the release of Avatar, there is a lot of concern on whether 20^th Century Studios will be able to build the hype up for the franchise again. To that, Asbell says that they are depending on the marketing team over at Disney. He says: “[Disney] will do an incredible job reigniting that passion for the original film… It’s less about Avatar being a really big movie and more about how Avatar was a really important cultural moment for audiences. I don’t think it will be hard to convince people to come back.”

We don’t know why James Cameron would suddenly want to come back to Avatar after all these years, but it’s possible that Avengers: Endgame beating his box office record could have something to do with it.

While I did enjoy Avatar at the time, the movie hasn’t managed to stick to pop-culture as strictly as Star Wars or Marvel did. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens when Avatar 2 comes out this holiday season.

Talking to EW, Cameron explains why the Avatar sequel will deal with the oceans of Pandora. He says:

“I do the ocean thing when I’m not making movies… So if I could combine my two greatest loves — one of which is ocean exploration; the other, feature filmmaking — why wouldn’t I?”

We’ve only seen still photos and concept art of this upcoming world, but it has been described as “Bora Bora on steroids.” With the rainforest in the first Avatar overflowing with color and alien life, I can’t wait to see what kind of underwater world Pandora will be bringing to the big screen.

With Avatar being such a huge hit back in 2009, you would think that a sequel would have come out sooner; I guess if we were getting sequels, we would be at the fifth entry by now—so it kind of makes sense that Cameron would announce four sequels already underway. He says, “It sounds kind of nuts, the process… I mean, if Avatar hadn’t made so much damn money, we’d never do this — because it’s kind of crazy.”

Here’s the synopsis for Avatar 2:

Jake Sully lives with his newfound family formed on the planet of Pandora. Once a familiar threat returns to finish what was previously started, Jake must work with Neytiri and the army of the Na’vi race to protect their planet.

The first Avatar sequel is set to hit theaters in Dec. 16, 2022.