Cameron Talks Avatar 2, Re-Release, DVD

Published by Jeff Leins on April 21, 2010

To promote the DVD release of Avatar on Thursday, James Cameron has been making the rounds discussing his involvement with the Earth Day Network and plugging the April 22 release of the biggest movie in box office history.

In an interview with the LA Times’ Hero Complex, Cameron said he wants to explore a different environment of the planet Pandora this time.  Rather than the flying through the skies, he’ll be taking the cameras to the oceans, something he’s had plenty of experience with in The Abyss and Titanic.  He just can’t stay out of the water, can he?

“[The ocean on Pandora] will be equally rich and diverse and crazy and imaginative, but it just won’t be a rain forest. I’m not saying we won’t see what we’ve already seen; we’ll see more of that as well,” Cameron said.

In the third film (yes he’s planning a trilogy), the adventure may go off Pandora and further into the Alpha Centauri AB system.

Cameron also confirmed the original movie will be re-released in theaters this August with six additional minutes of footage.  Why only six?  As we reported in March, the maximum IMAX length is 170 minutes and since the theatrical release already runs 162 minutes there’s very little room for expansion.  Weta is currently working on the effects for the additional footage, but two possible scenes include a section where Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) further proves himself to the Na’vi people, or a native festival where Tsu’tey gets his buzz on with a different kind of Pandoran spirits.

If you’re concerned about James Cameron tampering with his film like George Lucas did with Star Wars, read what he had to say about the topic to Entertainment Weekly: “I find that disturbing. It’s a revision of history. That bothers me. I certainly wouldn’t go back and do that to any of my films. A film I made in 1984, it’s what it is. It’s a creature of its time.”

The DVD/Blu-ray released this week is a stripped down version of the film, or essentially a bare bones purchase with only the 2D, theatrical cut of the movie.  Cameron had all the trailers and other Fox junk removed, and the studio uploaded the special features to a special website in order to give the movie the highest possible quality for each disc.  Another version with all the loaded extras (though not 3D) will be released in November.