Nordling here.
As James Cameron prepares for AVATAR 2 and 3, discussions are already being made about Cameron's post-AVATAR life. Cameron has said previously that after AVATAR he's probably done with narrative filmmaking, but according to Jon Landau, BATTLE ANGEL: ALITA is still on the schedule, according to Swedish film site MovieZine: "We focus on AVATAR for the next four or five years. It will happen hopefully right after that." Cameron has been interested in adapting the anime for years, and it's very possible that Cameron may not direct it but produce and hand the reins over to another filmmaker. With all the technology that Cameron has helped make for AVATAR, I'd imagine that any adaptation of BATTLE ANGEL: ALITA would be visually stunning, but it's also likely years away.
But for now, it's all things AVATAR, and Cameron hasn't ruled out the possibility of a prequel to the whole story. In an interview with MTV, Cameron stated that the plot would center on the world of Pandora many years before the events of the first movie, and what happened when humanity and Na'vi met:
"I have an idea for a fourth. I haven't really put pen to paper on it, but basically it goes back to the early expeditions of Pandora, and kind of what went wrong with the humans and the Na'vi and what that was like to be an explorer and living in that world... Because when we drop in, even in the first film in AVATAR 1, as it will be known in the future, we're dropping into a process that's 35 years in to a whole colonization. That will complete an arc and if that leads into more, we'll start, not imitating STAR WARS, but it's a logical thing to do because we'll have completed the thematic arc by the end of three. The only thing left to do is go back to see what it was like on those first expeditions and create some new characters that then become legacy characters in later films. It's a plan."
As we all know, prequels are not always successful because we know what happens next, taking the suspense and uncertainty out of the equation. And it's very far away at this point - Cameron is in the early stages of pre-production on AVATAR 2 and 3, so it's definitely not primary in his mind right now. I'm curious to see where the franchise goes myself. What do you think?
