As for blockbusters, anyone hoping that Cameron's long-gestating Battle Angel Alita would happen any time soon are in for some disappointment, because Cameron's sticking with he trials and travails of his noble savages the Na'vi.  We knew already that Cameron was planning Avatar 2 and Avatar 3, but in a new interview with The New York Times, he reveals that a fourth Avatar is also possible. 

Cameron explained his Avatar-only policy after being asked about scripts and general areas he's interested in, to which he responded,

"I’ve divided my time over the last 16 years over deep ocean exploration and filmmaking. I’ve made two movies in 16 years, and I’ve done eight expeditions. Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So I’m not interested in developing anything.

I’m in the “Avatar” business. Period. That’s it. I’m making “Avatar 2,” “Avatar 3,” maybe “Avatar 4,” and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts. And that all sounds I suppose a little bit restricted, but the point is I think within the “Avatar” landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it… and doing it in an entertaining way.

Anything I can’t say in that area, I want to say through documentaries, which I’m continuing. I’ve done five documentaries in the last 10 years, and I’ll hopefully do a lot more. In fact, I’m doing one right now, which is on this, the Deep Sea Challenge project that we just completed the first expedition. So that’ll be a film that’ll get get made this year and come out first quarter of next year."

So just how are those Avatar sequels coming along, then?  Initially, the broad idea was for Cameron to shoot both the first and second sequel simultaneously and release them a year apart, with the first pegged to arrive in 2014.  Earlier this year, Jon Landau confirmed the creeping suspicion that Avatar 2 is more distant than that, saying that it would be roughly four years before audiences get their return tickets to Pandora.

Cameron was less specific about the timing, but did assert that the sequels are a long way off, saying,

"We’ve spent the last year and a half on software development and pipeline development. The virtual production methodology was extremely prototypical on the first film. As then, no one had ever done it before and we didn’t even know for two and half years into it and $100 million into it if it was going to work. So we just wanted to make our lives a whole lot easier so that we can spend a little more of our brainpower on creativity.

It was a very, very uphill battle on the first film. So we’ve been mostly working on the tool set, the production pipeline, setting up the new stages in Los Angeles, setting up the new visual effects pipeline in New Zealand, that sort of thing. And, by the way, writing. We haven’t gotten to the design stage yet. That’ll be the next."

The extensive interview with Cameron took place in Beijing and covers a lot of information on Cameron's attempt to tap into the Chinese market more aggressively.  It's worth a read, so check out the whole thing by clicking right here.

Don't forget, Disney's planning a Pandora theme park, with construction getting underway in 2013.