Looks like this week is Avatar and James Cameron news week. Production has officially begun on the Avatar sequels, and with it, the studio is looking to start giving prospective viewers a reason to be excited about the upcoming sequel.

That’s a tall order. While Avatar was the highest grossing film of all time, in recent years, it seems to have fallen out of favor with a lot of fans. Plus, given the amount of spectacle we’re treated to on a near-monthly basis, it’ll have to bring a lot of new things to the table in order to get us excited for this long overdue sequel, and the other three films to follow.

With the next film not due for another three-plus years, they have plenty of time to roll the red carpet out for us, and today, they released a few photos showing off seven new young cast members for the film.

Check them out below!

Here’s what 20th Century Fox had to say:

“20th Century Fox has revealed the newest cast members of the AVATAR SEQUELS who recently explored Pandora – The World of Avatar at Disney’s Animal Kingdom for inspiration. Concurrent production began in Manhattan Beach, CA on Monday, September 25th on the four sequels, the first of which will be released December 18, 2020.”

The fact that concurrent production for these sequels would be a thing has been well known for a while, but speaking with THR, director James Cameron revealed more specific details as to how they’ll be making this happen.

“Avatar 2 and 3 will be captured together and then [go through postproduction] sequentially. Then we go back and capture 4 and 5. They’re all written and they’re all designed, so we literally hit the ground running the day after Avatar 3 comes out, starting capture on 4 and 5 and then post on those and release those. That’s the plan. So, it’s kind of a two-and-two structure.”

So while it’s been touted that these films would be shot back-to-back-to-back-to-back in the past, it sounds more like he’ll be handling it back-to-back and then back-to-back. That being said, it also seems that the work he’s doing now is really laying the groundwork for all impending sequels.

“I’ve been doing what we call scouting, which is where we take the virtual world, we put it out on the stage and we match up the physical set pieces to it. Members of our acting troupe play many, many different characters, and we go through the scenes and make sure that all of the technical hurdles have been met before we bring the principal cast in for their [motion] capture. We’ve been working in the volume — we call it the volume, which is our working space — for months now, and everything looks gorgeous and spectacular and we have the best concept artists in the world. We have, I think, some of the best CG artists in the world. I couldn’t be happier about the way everything looks.”

While the work getting done may be specific to the next two films, we’re sure it also plays a role in how the next couple films are handled.

Does any of these get you excited for the Avatar sequels, or does Fox have a lot of work to do to get you in theaters? Sound off down below!

Avatar 2 hits theaters on December 18, 2020!

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SOURCE: 20th Century Fox, THR