It has been several years since we last visited Pandora, but James Cameron has confirmed that Avatar – which still holds the title for the highest-grossing movie of all time – is finally going to get its sequels.

Released in 2009, Avatar took the world by storm and ended up grossing over $2.7 billion at the box office. Fans were immediately hoping for news that the film would expand into a franchise and that we would get to see more of the world Cameron had created. While the famed director always planned to continue with the story, he didn’t provide any further details about when that might happen. Now, we finally have the release dates for not one, but four Avatar sequels that are currently in the works.

The first sequel, titled Avatar 2, is slated for a release date of December 18, 2020, a full 11 years after the release of the first movie. Avatar 3 will follow a year later, on December 17, 2021. Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 will then begin filming and are set to be released on December 20, 2024, and December 19, 2025.

What has Cameron been up to all of these years? Well, he’s spent much of the time since the first movie was released writing the scripts for the sequels, a process which took him four years. After the scripts were completed and approved, work started on the design and tech development that would form the backbone of the next four movies. Every setting, character, and creature were all ready to go before production had even started.

Now that the sequels are finally in the works, we’ve also finally got some information on the cast that is going to bring the Avatar characters to life. Reprising their roles from the first movie are Zoe Saldana (Neytiri), Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Stephen Lang (Quaritch), Sigourney Weaver (Grace Augustine), Joel David Moore (Norm Spellman), and Matt Gerald (Wainfleet).

Oona Chaplin and Cliff Curtis are signed on for the sequels as well, as are a host of new, young actors. Some of these young actors will be playing the children of Jake and Neytiri, while others will be playing young members of the Metkayina Na’vi clan, who live near the ocean reefs of Pandora. James Cameron also revealed that Kate Winslet has joined the cast of the upcoming movies. The Titanic star is teaming up with Cameron once again for a role as one of Pandora’s “sea people.”

One of the few facts about the sequels that many fans have known for years now is that they would involve an exploration of Pandora’s oceans and that certain scenes would be set underwater. James Cameron revealed that work has already begun on filming these underwater scenes and that his young actors have learned to hold their breaths from two to four minutes at a time. The actors spent six months training in preparation for these difficult shoots. Kate Winslet’s role requires a good deal of water work as well, which she demanded to do herself.

James Cameron admitted that, if audiences don’t respond as well as hoped to Avatar 2 and Avatar 3, then the fourth and fifth sequels likely won’t see production. He is, however, very confident that fans of the first movie are sure to love the sequels as well. All of the same themes, spiritual undercurrents, and characters that audiences fell in love with are going to play a big role in what’s to come and will attract moviegoers to the film once more. We’ll see if Cameron is right when we finally get to visit Pandora again in just a few years’ time.