Director James Cameron has recently made an exciting announcement that he plans to make three sequels to 2009 sci-fi blockbuster Avatar at a press conference with New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key in Wellington on Monday.

Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver, Avatar, which made $2.7 billion worldwide along with winning three Academy Awards, was the highest-grossing film in history.

"It's quite a thrill to be officially saying that we're bringing the 'Avatar' films to New Zealand," Cameron said of the production plans. "We had such a wonderful experience here making the first film."

"It's going to be a lot of new imagery and a lot of new environments and creatures across Pandora," he added. "We're blowing it out all over the place. At first I thought I was going to take it onto other worlds as well, in the same solar system, but it turned out not to be necessary. I mean the Pandora that we have imagined will be a fantasy land that is going to occupy people for decades to come, the way I see it."

The director then explained that the upcoming movies would explore different Na'vi cultures, as well as the cultures of other Pandora creatures.

"There's a fair bit of underwater stuff. It's been inaccurately said that the second film takes place underwater. That's not true," said Cameron. "There are underwater scenes and surface-water scenes having to do with indigenous ocean cultures that are distributed across the three films."

Cameron also said that while the first film focused on Jake Sully, the follow-up movies would tell the stories of his family.

"We spread it around quite a bit more as we go forward," he said. "It's really the story of his family, the family that he creates on Pandora. His extended family. So think of it as a family saga like 'The Godfather.'"

Produced by James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox, the first Avatar sequel will be released in 2016. The following sequels will be released in late 2017 and late 2018, respectively.