James Cameron To Write Avatar Prequel Novel

James Cameron's Avatar has surpassed $2.35 billion worldwide, and keeps on going. A sequel is almost definite, but won't be seen on the big screen for a couple of years, at very least. But that doesn't mean we have to wait until 2012 or 2013 to return to Pandora. Producer Jon Landau revealed to MTV that Cameron plans to write a novel set within the world created in Avatar, a prequel to the story of the film. The plan is to get the book in stores by the end of the year.

Here is what Landau said:

"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."

The photo above is from one of the deleted scenes from the movie that was actually shot on future earth (read more about it on marketsaw). Cameron's original 114-page scriptment almost reads like a novel, and contained a lot more information about life in the 22nd century.

According to the treatment, population of Earth has tripled, and the planet is dying due to a combination os "overpopulation, over- development, nuclear terrorism, environmental warfare tactics, radiation leakage from power plants and waste dumps, toxic waste, air pollution, deforestation, pollution and overfishing of the oceans, global warming, ozone depletion, loss of biodiversity through extinction" The scriptment explains that the human race has learned to keep itself alive, but has "lost almost all contact with the natural world, which it has strangled and crushed out of existence." The United States is covered with cities, crowded and gray, described as "a cross between THX-1138 and a Calcutta train station." National Parks no longer exist. Jake (named "Josh" in this earlier draft) lives in a "tiny cubicle of an apartment in a vast government housing project" in a small room "reminiscent of a cell at a federal prison". Paralyzed due to his involvement in "a stupid little war people barely remember," Jake is described as "a hopeless guy in a hopeless world." Sully's brother Thomas died in a Boston subway fire, one of over 100 people asphyxiated in the not-so-unusual accident. Of course, none of this is explained in the theatrical film.

And that is just a bit of the information revealed in the first page or two. I would love to hear more about the world of Pandora, and find out what became of Jake's brother Tommy, and the future of our home planet, Earth.