Avatar Sequel to Focus on Pandora's Ocean

With Avatar hitting Blu-ray and DVD on Thursday, the Los Angeles Times talked to James Cameron about the highest-grossing movie of all time (it's at $2.717 billion now). In the interview, Cameron revealed that the Avatar sequel will focus on the ocean of Pandora while they'll explore more of the Alpha Centauri AB system in a third film. Here's an excerpt:

We created a broad canvas for the environment of film. That's not just on Pandora, but throughout the Alpha Centauri AB system. And we expand out across that system and incorporate more into the story – not necessarily in the second film, but more toward a third film. I've already announced this, so I might as well say it: Part of my focus in the second film is in creating a different environment – a different setting within Pandora. And I'm going to be focusing on the ocean on Pandora, which 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.

While Thursday's release doesn't have any features, Cameron says that we'll get an additional six minutes in theaters for a re-release of the film in August before a 4-Disc Blu-ray/DVD set hits stores in November:

We're working on finishing an additional six minutes of the film -- which includes a lot of Weta work -- for a theatrical re-release in August. We were sold out of our IMAX performances right up to the moment until they were contractually obligated to switch to "Alice in Wonderland," so we know we left money on the table there. And the 3-D really helped "Avatar" right up until the moment that it hurt it. And it hurt it at the moment "Alice" and then "How to Train Your Dragon" and "Clash of the Titans" came in and sucked up all the 3-D screens. We went from declining 8% a week to declining 50%. Clearly, it wasn't market forces directly; it was the availability of theaters. So we're going to wait until there's a time to come back in, inject the new footage into the mix and see if we can interest people in the "Avatar" experience in theaters.

Special edition of Avatar to hit cinemas

Good news, Avatar fans!

If you didn't get enough of the mega-hit movie the first time around, never fear, for Avatar's here. Again.

Set for a big-screen return, an extended version of Avatar will be shown in local cinemas with an additional eight minutes of never-before-seen footage, exclusively in 3D.

If you've been stuck in a deep sleep somewhere in a far flung stasis chamber in a galaxy far, far away and have no idea what Avatar is, well, here's the gist of it:

Avatar is, to date, the highest grossing film of all time.

Director James Cameron takes audiences to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization. 

The movie also delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the epic nature of the story.

Avatar will return in GSC, TGV and Cathay Cineplexes from August 24.