Cameron Talks Extended AVATAR Details, Two Sequels(?), TITANIC's 3D Conversion, Likes CLASH OF THE TITANS In 2D, And More!!

Merrick here...
I've been quite ill for the last few days and all of this has been sitting around waiting for someone to post it (ahem). Now that I'm kinda/sorta/half-way functional (although I'm still seeing double), I thought it might still be of interest and apologize for the inexplicable delay. I'm gonna keep this one simple and quick: James Cameron's been talking about various things AVATAR, and 3D in general. In THIS piece at MTV, he details some of the material we'll see in the soon-to-be-released longer version of AVATAR.

"There's a pretty powerful emotional scene at the end which is Tsu'tey's death ... which happens off-camera in the original release. [In the original film] he kind of falls off the back of the shuttle and that's the last that you see of him but here we follow through. We have this emotional scene with Jake [Sully] and Neytiri and some other Na'vi that gather around him in the forest," Cameron said. [EDIT] The revamped flick will also introduce fans to a new element of the alien environment: a herd-like creature called a Sturmbeest. "There's a big scene we called the Sturmbeest hunt," Cameron said. "The Sturmbeest is an animal that basically will be new to audiences because all of the Sturmbeest stuff got cut out. Once I took out the hunt, I took out the scene where I establish it [and] I took out the moment where it appears in the final battle. All that stuff's now been reinstated so there's gonna be a lot of Sturmbeest in your diet."

Click the link above to find more details (there are quite a few more) about what's in store.
Over at Collider, Cameron discusses the state of 3D in general - disparaging CLASH OF THE TITAN's much-maligned 3D conversion, saying that he was actually a fan of the film in 2D. Having recently seen it in 2D Blu-Ray, I can agree that I found the picture to have a significantly different and improved vibe when uncompromised by the shitty 3D conversion we were fed on the big screen. He also reveals that the 3D conversion of TITANIC will take 8 months to 1 year, after extensive testing. The Collider piece touches on Cameron's interesting approach to the upcoming AVATAR novel, and goes into detail about the movie sequel(s!?) we may see...

Cameron is strongly considering shooting the sequels back-to-back. “That is something that makes a lot of sense, given the nature of these productions, because we can bank all the [motion] capture and then go back and do cameras over a period of time… The way these back-to-back productions fall apart is that you’re trying to do two live-action films back to back, and you’re working on it for a year and a half, shooting. Everyone is dead. It’s not humanly possible. This type of film, it absolutely would work.

You can find all of this, and much more, HERE. Please note that much of then info appearing in the articles linked above originates at MarketSaw.
Finally, this morning I received word that The Powers That Be are doing not entirely logical things with the release of AVATAR's extended cut in IMAX. In short, don't just assume it's coming to an IMAX in your area, no matter how well the film performed in your neck of the woods during its initial release. In Austin, for example, the picture sold out every screening during its final week of IMAX presentations...but Austin is notreceiving the extended cut because we don't meet whatever fucked up criteria has been established for this re-release (probably having to do with definitions of "major city"/"major markets" I should think). So, if you're interested in seeing Cameron's new version of AVATAR in IMAX, be sure to check with you local screens and raise all kinds of hell if you're not getting it in that format. More as we know more...
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