Director James Cameron has been promising follow-ups to his 2009 film Avatar since shortly after the first pic entered theaters and started breaking box office records.  In true Cameron fashion, the filmmaker has taken his time in crafting the sequels.  We finally got a (hopefully) firm timetable earlier this year, when 20th Century Fox announced that the Avatar trilogy had been expanded to three sequels, with Avatar 2 opening in theaters December 2016.  Now Sam Worthington has provided yet another update on when filming might begin, offering a few other details in the process.  Hit the jump for more.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Speaking on an Australian radio show (via Yahoo! UK), Worthington said that he expects filming on Avatar 2 to commence in October 2014, adding that much of the writing process for the follow-up has been completed by Cameron.  This isn’t the first time that someone involved with the production has provided a target date for when filming on the Avatar sequels might begin (Cameron said 2013, Zoe Saldana recently said early 2014), so I wouldn’t exactly take this as a hard fact.  Remember, proposed release dates of 2014 and 2015 for Avatar 2 and 3 were announced years ago and that didn’t stop Cameron from pushing things back.

Nevertheless, Cameron has some help in writing these three Avatar sequels so that should make things move a bit more quickly.  Worthington added that production on Avatar 3 and 4 will take place immediately after Avatar 2, so he expects the entire filming process to last for the better part of a year once they start.  Again, it’s tough to take any of this to heart when so many dates and “hoped for” plans have been announced and scrapped over the last four years, but it’s clear that Cameron is very much focused on getting things going sooner rather than later.

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Image via 20th Century Fox