CRI听力:James Cameron Delays 'Avatar' Sequel until Late 2017

Some sad news for Pandora fans…

Director James Cameron has pushed back production on the "Avatar" sequels.

And the next chapter won't hit theaters until Christmas 2017, a year later than originally planned.

It confirms what had been rumored for months, that the director had yet to deliver a shooting script to 20th Century Fox, delaying budgeting and production work on the vastly ambitious project.

Part of the issue is that Cameron is shooting his planned trilogy simultaneously.

"I'm writing parts of it. I've got a writing team, they're supposed to be submitting the other portions. As you know, we're writing three simultaneously. And we've done that so that everything tracks throughout the three films, we're not just going to do one and then make up another one and another one after that. And parallel with that we're doing all the design. So we've designed all the creatures and the environments and all that sort of thing with the art team in Los Angeles. And so we're well on track. We're a bit behind, time-wise, what we'd hoped for. "

The delay deprives Fox of one of its signature projects at one of the most popular times of the year for moviegoing.

"Avatar" remains the biggest box office hit in history, with a box office gross of 2.8 billion U.S. dollars.