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Cameron confirms AVATAR sequels and Novel

 

Returning to Pandora is now a sure thing, according to James Cameron. The colourful Canadian-born filmmaker plans to direct two Avatar sequels himself, he said this week at his Hollywood studio. "It's in progress right now," Cameron said. "I mean, there's a lot of writing, a lot of designing, a lot of tech work that we're going to do. What I can tell you is this: Our plan right now is to make II and III together as a single large production, and release them a year apart."But the process might take five or six years.

"There shouldn't be any surprise there," he said, mocking himself. While perfecting new Avatar technology, he might make another movie first, Cameron explained during presentations to promote the Nov. 16 release of the Extended Collector's Edition of the original Avatar on Blu-ray.

Meanwhile, Cameron is writing an Avatar novel, with 30 years of back story. He also is deeply involved with eco-activist causes that solicited him after the phenomenal success of Avatar, which is driven by an environmental theme. His focus includes fighting the Alberta tar sands development, which Cameron says is "poisoning" First Nations people and creating "cancer clusters" in communities downstream from the massive oil extraction projects.

THE SEQUELS: Cameron says he wants to make sure that breakthrough technology that turned Avatar into a spectacle is now pushed forward. "We need to future-proof ourselves out five, six years to the end of the third film. So we're taking the time now."
His team is "tooling up a new facility" near his current studio just for the sequels. "It's permanent in the sense that it's designed to span two Avatar films. We're laying all the foundation work right now. Nothing is holding us back." But digital technology moves quickly, and Cameron says Avatar convinced him "there are a lot of things we knew we needed to do better." The goal, he says, is to ensure "we're not obsolete when we make the last movie."

James Cameron's thoughts on Sigourney Weaver's character returning for Avatar sequels, despite her apparent death in the first film...

"Who said she died?" Cameron teased with a big grin, "Nobody dies in a science fiction movie. Whether Grace lives or dies depends more on Sigourney's agent than anything.

(Via: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=70922)

THE NOVEL: "The novel is a big project. My idea for the novel is not a novelization -- which I hate -- where you basically just take the script and put it into prose form, and add a few extra adjectives. What I really want to do is say: 'OK, if this movie were based on a book, what would that book have been?' "
Cameron is already deep into it. The novel will end like the first movie. "I don't give you one frame beyond that. But how about the 30 years before Jake gets to Pandora?"

THE ECO-ACTIVISM: Cameron says he remains committed to select causes among hundreds he has been approached about. "We've had to be selective because we can't get involved in every single cause everywhere. Even if I devoted the rest of my life to it, we can't do everything."

He intensely researches each cause he does support, including fighting the Alberta tar sands project. The goal there is to get the Alberta government and the oil companies to mitigate the effects of pollution, Cameron says.

"It's not me," he said of his influence. "A year ago I couldn't have stood up and done all that stuff -- and nobody would have asked me to. It's really that the movie has created this kind of global consciousness around this idea that we have to do something about our relationship with nature. I'm also not, by the way, delusional that a movie can change the world. But I do believe that, if you put a foot in the right direction and then you follow up ... But I can't wait until I make another Avatar movie (to act). There are too many important things that are happening right now."

(via Toronto Sun: http://www.torontosun.com/entertainment/movies/2010/10/22/15791561.html)

Wild Blue Yonder

James Cameron is preparing to dive to the deepest point of the oceans as part of research for a sequel to Avatar, his 3-D epic. He has commissioned Australian engineers to build a deep sea submersible which can reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench - 11,000m down in the western Pacific - after deciding to set the film in the turbulent waters of Pandora, an alien moon.

More After the Jump!!

Avatar Invades Fashion Week! (updated)

And here's great big THANK YOU to Australian Fashion designer Camilla Franks for including inspiration from Pandora. She also went to the great trouble of delicately painting up some of the models to look like Na'vi. Absolutely Fabulous. Here are all of the photos I could find, including the fashion, which is beautiful.

More after the Jump!

James Cameron on Re-Release, Sequel, BP Oil spill, and more...

With the re-release of Jame's Cameron's epic "Avatar" today, speculation, questions, and interviews are flying.  Here I have excerpts from two different interviews Jim gave to MTV and The Oregonian.

The fanbase that's built up around the film is massive, and it's understandable: director James Cameron crafted a fully fleshed out universe for his story to live in. There's so much depth that a companion book was released. And still fans want to know more. MTV's Eric Ditzian and Kara Warner did a deep-dive interview with Cameron and producer Jon Landau in an effort to answer some of those last lingering questions.

Hit the jump to learn whether people age during deep space travel, why the movie was set in 2154 and more!

Re-Release This August!

When the AVATAR re-release hits theaters on August 27 get ready for 9 new minutes of never-before-seen footage of life on Pandora. Although Cameron originally planned 8 minutes, the final cut includes 9. One of the deleted scenes includes Tsu-tey's death: "There's a pretty powerful emotional scene at the end which is Tsu'tey's death ... which happens off-camera in the original release. [In the original film] he kind of falls off the back of the shuttle and that's the last that you see of him but here we follow through. We have this emotional scene with Jake [Sully] and Neytiri and some other Na'vi that gather around him in the forest," Cameron said. Cameron also says the additional AVATAR scenes include four major moments, each a few minutes long that center on when the helicopter first lands in the Pandora rainforest. There's also a new creature that turns up: the Sturmbeest. The director also said the scenes that were reinstated in the re-release version are big on non-stop action.

Cameron also revealed that he's talked to the studio about shooting Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 sequels back-to-back. “We’re actually talking about [doing 2 and 3] back to back. That’s not a decision yet but that’s something that makes a lot of sense given the nature of these productions because we can bank all the capture and go back and do cameras over a period of time… cause the way these sort of back to back productions fall apart is you’re trying to do two live-action films back to back and you’re working on it for like a year and a half shooting. Everybody’s dead- it’s not humanly possible. But this type of film it absolutely would work.”