We’ve already heard that she’d be returning, but now it’s official: Sigourney Weaver has signed on to appear in James Cameron’s trio of Avatar sequels, where she will join fellow Pandora veterans Sam Worthington (Jake Sully), Zoe Saldana (Neytiri), and Stephen Lang (Colonel Quaritch).
“Sigourney and I have a long creative history, dating back to 1985 when we made Aliens,” Cameron tells Deadline. “We’re good friends who’ve always worked well together, so it just feels right that she’s coming back for the Avatar sequels. Her character of Grace Augustine, as fans know, died in the first movie, so she’s playing a different and in many ways more challenging character in the upcoming films. We’re both looking forward to this new creative challenge, the latest chapter in our long and continuing collaboration.”
The Avatar sequels are set to shoot back-to-back beginning this year, with Avatar 2 arriving in December 2016, followed by Avatar 3 in December 2017 and Avatar 4 in December 2018.