Stephen Lang Talks Avatar Sequels

Avatar’s Colonel Miles Quaritch remains one of the better villains of the last decade, so it was a little disheartening to see his unceremoniously killed off in the first film. Well, as it turns out, fans will get to see plenty more of the dastardly military genius in James Cameron’s upcoming sequels, which, apparently, was the plan right from the get go, according to Stephen Lang.

“Jim indicated to me years ago, before filming on ‘Avatar’ was completed, that Quaritch had a future,” Lang told Deadline. “I might have taken that with a grain of salt at the time because we’d had a few beers. Shortly after ‘Avatar’ opened Jim mentioned again that the Colonel was coming back, and by then I knew Jim well enough to know that he means what he says and he says what he means.”

This jibes with Cameron’s comments from 2017 in which he stated: “There’s not a new villain every time, which is interesting. Same guy. Same motherf*cker through all four [planned] movies. He is so good and he just gets better. I know Stephen Lang is gonna knock this out of the park.”

Is it possible to make one villain interesting over the course of potentially five movies? Looks like we’re about to find out.

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The cast of the Avatar franchise includes Kate Winslet, Edie Falco, Michelle Yeoh, Vin Diesel, Jemaine Clement, and Oona Chaplin alongside a slate of young actors. Returning cast members include Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, Stephen Lang, Matt Gerald and Sigourney Weaver.

After some shuffling of the schedule, Avatar 2 has been pushed back a full year from December 18, 2020, to December 17, 2021. Avatar 3 has been pushed back two years December 17, 2021 to December 22, 2023. Avatar 4 will open two years after that on December 19, 2025 (originally December 20, 2024) and Avatar 5 will drop on December 17, 2027 (originally December 19, 2025). Although Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 will only be released with director James Cameron’s caveat that Avatar 2 and 3 are successful at the box office.