20th Century FoxFanboys hoping to don the blue paint and do their best Na'vi impression might as well go into deep-space hibernation for a few more years.
That because, according to Avatar producer Jon Landau, the ambitious plans James Cameron has for shooting his two hugely anticipated sequels means moviegoers aren't likely to see Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 until 2016 and 2017.
That's two years longer than the December 2014 target date 20th Century Fox announced when the projects were officially unveiled.
At a recent Los Angeles preview screening showcasing scenes of the King of the World's Box Office's forthcoming 3-D release of Titanic, Landau was quoted by fansite Bleeding Cool as saying the first installment is "four years away."
If that 2016 projection is correct, it will have been a whopping seven years since the original sci-fi adventure first stormed theaters and became the highest grossing film of all time (ahead of Titanic, natch). That's forever by Tinseltown standards (and not soon enough for studio bean counters).
But there's good reason for the delay as Cameron intends to film much of it underwater and has previously stated Avatar 2 will take place in the oceans of Pandora.
Since the ever-perfectionist director plans to shoot both sequels back-to-back, Landau's estimate means Avatar 3 won't hit theaters until Christmas '17.
Given the complexities of performance capture and the technical boundary-pushing they hope to achieve with their 3-D camera system, let's hope it will be worth the wait.
Per MTV, Cameron has been hounding his leading man, Sam Worthington, to get certified so the two can go scuba diving together and Cameron can show the actor what's in store for Marine-turned-Na'vi Jake Sully in the next installment.
Who knows, maybe this time around he'll get his tail on with a 3-D glow-in-the-dark jellyfish...