Anyone out there NOT see AVATAR?
Well some news out of MTV has it that James Cameron is not only continuing on with a (at least one) cinematic sequel to the largest grossing motion picture of all time, but he’s planning on writing an AVATAR novel which will chronicle a prequel style back-story. No, really.
According to AVATAR producer Jon Landau, “Jim is going to write a novel himself… Not a novelization — and there is a distinction. A novelization basically retells the story of the movie. Jim wants to write a novel that is a big, epic story that fills in a lot of things.”
So what kinds of things would Cameron fill in? Landau continues:
“It would be something that would lead up to telling the story of the movie, but it would go into much more depth about all the stories that we didn’t have time to deal with – like the schoolhouse and Sigourney [Weaver’s character] teaching at the schoolhouse; Jake on Earth and his backstory and how he came here; [the death of] Tommy, Jake’s brother; and Colonel Quaritch, how he ended up there and all that.”
Adding to the prequel notion:
“There might be opportunities in publishing to tell some of the back-story, tell some of the Earth war stories, what went on in Jake’s life before the movie. And we’d have that lead up to the sequel that might take place on Pandora several years after our movie closed.”
Hmmm. Let’s see, AVATAR has garnered 9 Oscar nods, none of which happen to be for James Cameron’s screenplay, one he wrote himself. In fact, when it comes to the film’s criticism, it largely resides in the weaknesses of the screenplay, it’s simplicity, it’s unoriginality, it’s naivety (just ask our man The Arrow how he feels about the script). Furthermore, Cameron has never written a novel before.
Am I the only one who thinks writing an AVATAR prequel in book-form is a pretty bad idea? I guess if James is looking to capitalize on the male counterpart to the TWILIGHT readership, then maybe I can see it working. Otherwise, I’m shouting a big fat NO on the matter. Who’s with me? Anyone?
Damn, I miss posting Zoe Saldana pics!
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