New adventure ... Characters from the 2009 Avatar film will return for the new trilogy. Picture: AP

Cameron, who also wrote and directed Titanic and Terminator 1 and 2, told the Montreal Gazette that Christmas 2017 was the target.

But Cameron is most excited about the plan to release Avatar 2, and then two more sequels a year apart.

In action ... Actor Sam Worthington in a motion-capture suit with director James Cameron filming AvatarSource:Supplied

“I call it a meta-narrative that runs across the three movies. Each film stands alone, but it also tells one much larger story,” Cameron said.

Cameron said the two-year task of designing the world of the three upcoming films is almost complete. The writing is also still a work in progress, but Cameron said it too was almost finished.

Avatar star Sam Worthington faces $5 million suit

“(We’ve finished) all the creatures and the landscapes, and the new worlds within the world of Pandora that you see,” he said.

It was this big ... Avatar director James Cameron speaks at a press conference with actor Zoe Saldana. Picture: Bertrand GuaySource:AFP

“The writing is ongoing, but almost finished. Technical development is done. Stages are done. Infrastructure. So we’re really poised to start after the first of the year.”

When Avatar was released in 2009, it became the first film to gross more than $2 billion and became the highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing Cameron’s own film Titanic, which set the record in 1997.

It was criticised for heavily borrowing from the mythology and story of Pocahontas.

Cameron has previously promised the sequels will be a ‘family saga’.