MTV caught up with James Cameron at the PIRATES 2 premiere; the reclusive helmer hasn’t made a film in NINE years, but he seems to be ramping up for two including the manga adaptation BATTLE ANGEL:

The first of these films is a long-rumored love story to be set against the backdrop of a planet-hopping future — and has been known by several names. ” ‘Project 880,’ we’ll probably release it as ‘Avatar,’ ” he said, mentioning two such aliases. “We haven’t locked in on the title yet, but this is what we are calling it. [There will be] possible sequels if it does well; if it tanks, no.”

“We’re going to do ‘Avatar’ first, and we’re in active pre-production on it right now,” he added. “I’m directing it; I’m directing all these films.

“And with ‘Battle Angel,’ also, we’ll do the same thing,” Cameron said of his second project, a sci-fi thriller about a female cyborg in the 26th century. ” ‘Battle Angel’ is actually designed as a three-film cycle. So the logic there is to make one and, if it hits, boom-boom on the other two.”

“If you want to know more about ‘Battle Angel,’ you can get the graphic novels,” the director said of his source material. “There’s a series of 10 graphic novels, the original 10, by a Japanese artist named [Yukito] Kishiro.”

The tech-minded Cameron added that although he watched with great interest as “Sin City” filmmaker Robert Rodriguez reinvented the graphic-novel movie with his green-screen breakthroughs, “Angel” won’t be such a slave to the colored page. “It’ll be a cinematic style; it won’t be a moving graphic novel,” he revealed. “I think what Robert did with ‘Sin City’ was a spectacular visual experiment; I think it worked brilliantly, but that’s not what I’m going for. It’s more of a cinematic, photo-real feel.”

1 COMMENT

  1. Just so everyone knows, there is a new Battle Angel series called Battle Angel Last Order. I would also like to say that the first three books, which he plans to make the first film on, are not the best in the series. So support the movie so we can see the better part of Battle Angel on the big screen!!

    ~peace
    Shiro
    ps. its called Gunnm in japan.. which means gun dream