James Cameron revealed a little bit more about his plans for a sequel to Avatar, the highest-grossing movie of all time. While promoting the upcoming DVD and Blu-ray release of Avatar, Cameron said he's holding on to at least one deleted scene that he can bring back in a second film.
"There's a scene that I'm specifically not putting in the deleted scenes in any form because it's a scene that I want to preserve for a future film," Cameron said in a group interview on March 23 in West Hollywood, Calif. "I'm not going to say what it is, but that's absolutely a consideration."
The April DVD and Blu-ray release is a movie-only edition. Cameron is planning a special-edition release for November with more bonus content. As far as that Avatar sequel, producer Jon Landau described what other characters, creatures and locations could find their way into the story.
"Jim envisioned a very rich world," Landau said in a separate group interview. "There are creatures in this world that we have designed that we didn't have time to put into the movie. There are characters that we had actually filmed some scenes with that we didn't have time to put in the movie. Not only did we only touch the surface of Pandora, there are 12 other satellite moons around Polyphemus that we haven't even gone to. So I think all those are true possibilities."
In Cameron's interview, the writer/director also touched on Battle Angel, the manga adaptation that could be his next project. Battle Angel could feature more practical sets and locations than the performance-capture Avatar. In fact, that's why he chose to do Avatar first.
"I sat down to write a scene so we could shoot a test the next day," Cameron said. "I thought, 'All right, what are the scenes in Battle Angel that are full CG scenes between two characters?' There weren't any, but I knew there were a couple in Avatar, a number of them. Battle Angel was more of a mix of CG characters in a live-action photographic world. There were a few full CG scenes, but they weren't dialogue scenes, they were action scenes. Just the physical parameters of the movie kind of dictated that our test probably needs to be Avatar. Then when we did the test, we got all into Avatar."
Now James Cameron has the high-class problem of too many opportunities. He's still deciding what his next film will be. "I've got to decide," Cameron said. "Do I want to go back and do Battle Angel and come back to Avatar later, or just plow on with Avatar? Do I want to go do something completely different like this Mars project that's been floating around out there for the last 12 years that I actually started making the 3-D cameras in the first place in order to shoot? There are a number of options. I haven't decided. Dive's another possibility. I've got too many possibilities, not enough time."
Avatar is available on DVD and Blu-ray April 22, Earth Day.
