ComingSoon.net attended the London press conference for Avatar today where James Cameron talked about possible sequels, whether he’ll still make Battle Angel and producing Fantastic Voyage.
He said that because so much went into creating the world in Avatar, it makes sense to use that to make more films. “Actually, when I pitched this to 20th Century Fox four-and-a-half years ago, I said, ‘You know, we’re going to spend a lot of money and time and energy creating not only a process but the assets, the CG assets, we call them – all the models of every rock and tree and plant and creature and the muscle rigs for all the creatures and the facial rigging for the main characters and all that’… huge, millions and millions of dollars. So it really makes sense to think of it as the potential start of a franchise, if you will, or a saga that plays out over several acts, each movie being an act of that saga. And I have it mapped out, but I haven’t written the scripts yet. And it all depends on whether we do well with the first film. But that was certainly the intention from the beginning – to create a foundation for a persistent world.”
Cameron said that Battle Angel is one of the projects he’s going to be considering when he decides what he’ll do next. He was asked if he was to do a sequel to Avatar, would it be after Battle Angel? He said, “Not necessarily, that’s part of the decision making process.”
Also, this week there’s been reports that he is going to develop Fantastic Voyage. “We’ve been working on a script for ‘Fantastic Voyage,’ but that’s not for me to direct,” the director said. “That’s just a produced project. It’s quite different. But it’s got enough of the original story that you’ll still recognize it.”
Avatar opens in conventional 3D theaters and IMAX 3D on Friday, December 18.
