Actor Stephen Lang is to reprise his role as on-screen villain Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar sequel.James Cameron, director of academy-award winning film Titanic confirmed that Colonel Quaritch returns to work against the Na’avi in all of the films sequels, despite his supposed death at the end of the first movie. Lang, playing the role of a corrupt military man was highly appreciated for his work in the first film.

Avatar was Cameron’s child, having been written, produced, directed and co-edited by him. Released in 2009 and set in the future, Avatar is the story of Pandora, a habitable moon in the Alpha Centuri star system. Pandora is home to the Na’avi, a humanoid alien species, who work with humans to help them mine unobtanium on the planet. The uncontrolled expansion of the mining colony sets into effect the events that the film chronicles.

Avatar was an immediate box office hit, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time, and quickly becoming a part of popular culture as well. The film was especially commended for the exemplary special effects used to create an entirely new world altogether, with extensive work being done on the biological neural system’, the anatomies of various creatures, and in creating an entirely new language. Cameron had apparently waited since 1999 for special effects developments to arrive, and invested extensively on research for developing the same in order to achieve his vision for the film. Starring Sam Worthington. Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez and Signourey Weaver in lead roles, the film was nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, and ended up winning three Oscars; Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects.

Following the trailblazing success of Avatar, Cameron revealed that four film sequels had already been planned, and they are set to continue the story of the Na’avi, the blue-skinned aliens of the story; but the script will play around with mostly the same characters.

Speaking to Empire, Cameron commented “There are new plots 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.”. Lang’s reprise then, sounds like no big surprise- Signourey Weaver is also set to reprise her role as Dr Grace Augustine, in spite of her been shown her death at the end of the 2009 film.

The release dates of all four sequels have been confirmed, with the first sequel set to release on 18th December 2020, in glass-free 3D. The others are set to release in 2021, 2024 and 2025.