Film maker and avid explorer James Cameron has had a lot of projects on his plate recently, what with diving down to the bottom of the Earth's lowest point and producing the next part of the hugely successful Avatar franchise along with other previously slated projects, including the long-awaited Battle Angel Alita adaptation, which he's been talking up recently.

However, in his latest longform interview with the New York Times, it seems that Cameron may have had a change of heart about his previous production schedule, as he has confirmed that the film development arm of his production company has been disbanded in favor of solely focusing on Avatar exclusively:

“Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the Avatar business. Period. That’s it. I’m making Avatar, Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4.”

While he made no mention of disbanding his production company's development arm in previous interviews, the new confirmation puts the state of previously mentioned film projects in a state of limbo as he repeatedly stated that he wanted to work on the Battle Angel Alita adaptation. He continues on why he made the sudden change to his production schedule and his current plans with the Avatar sequel:

“I’ve divided my time over the last 16 years over deep ocean exploration and filmmaking. I’ve made two movies in 16 years, and I’ve done eight expeditions. Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the Avatar business. Period. That’s it. I’m making Avatar, Avatar 2, Avatar 3, maybe Avatar 4, and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts. And that all sounds I suppose a little bit restricted, but the point is I think within the Avatar landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it. And doing it in an entertaining way. And anything I can’t say in that area, I want to say through documentaries, which I’m continuing.”

“We’ve spent the last year and a half on software development and pipeline development. The virtual production methodology was extremely prototypical on the first film. As then, no one had ever done it before and we didn’t even know for two and half years into it and $100 million into it if it was going to work. So we just wanted to make our lives a whole lot easier so that we can spend a little more of our brainpower on creativity. It was a very, very uphill battle on the first film. So we’ve been mostly working on the tool set, the production pipeline, setting up the new stages in Los Angeles, setting up the new visual effects pipeline in New Zealand, that sort of thing. And, by the way, writing. We haven’t gotten to the design stage yet. That’ll be the next.”

With the sequel to Avatar not due until Christmas 2014, the above timeline and plans do seem to lead to the idea that Cameron isn't interested in making other types of films anymore. Anyone have any suggestions on who could handle the Alita adaptation since Cameron clearly isn't interested anymore?

via The Fandom Post

Humberto Saabedra is the Editor-in-Chief of AnimeNews.biz, PhoneNews.com and an occasional columnist for Ani.me. He can also be found musing on his favorite 2D girls at @AnimeNewsdotbiz.