James Cameron’s Avatar won’t be ready in time for summer, summer 2009 that is. The Titanic director’s next massive epic, a sci-fi adventure set on another planet, has been pushed back by 20th Century Fox six months from May 2009 to December 18, 2009. According to Variety, a year and a half just wasn’t enough time to get it done. Cameron needs a full two years to fit in all his post-production.

I can believe it, if the script we reviews here is any indicator, the film’s going to be almost all post-production. It’s barely a live action movie at all, 75% of it will be entirely computer animated. It’ll probably qualify for an animation Oscar. Most of that 2 years is likely going to be spent on computer processing time.

December 18 puts Cameron right back where he was the last time he made a movie. In 1997, that was the same weekend Titanic opened. By the time Avatar is finally finished, it’ll have been a dismally long 12 years since James Cameron has released a real movie. Vacation photos from your submarine don’t count Jim.