With the sequels to James Cameron's Avatar having experienced numerous delays, it's no surprise that a lot has changed since they were first announced in the wake of the film's astonishing box-office success in 2009. Despite those changes, however, it looks like Cameron is still sticking to his original plan of having Stephen Lang's Colonel Miles Quaritch return to wreak havoc across all four movies.

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"The interesting conceit of the Avatar sequels is it's pretty much the same characters," Cameron recently told Empire. "There are new characters and a lot of new settings and creatures, so I'm taking characters you know and putting them in unfamiliar places and moving them on this greater journey. But it's not a whole bunch of new characters every time. There's not a new villain every time, which is interesting. Same guy. Same motherf***er through all four movies. He is so good and he just gets better. I know Stephen Lang is gonna knock this out of the park."

Considering Colonel Quaritch took several arrows to the chest at the end of the first movie, it's not entirely clear how he will reappear. When Cameron first announced the character would return, he described him as evolving "into really unexpected places across the arc of our new three-film saga."

A number of actors from the first film are set to return for its sequels, including Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder and, most recently, Matt Gerald, who played Corporal Lyle Wainfleet. Newcomers include Cliff Curtis (Fear the Walking Dead) and Oona Chaplin (Quantum of Solace).

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Avatar 2 is currently expected to hit theaters in 2020, with sequels coming out in 2021, 2024 and 2025. The film's story is expected to see an eight year time-jump and focus on protagonist Jake Sully's family.