James Cameron has given an update on his three upcoming Avatar sequels.

The Hollywood director revealed that the films will be shot in 4K and potentially utilise the divisive 48 fps high frame rate format seen in The Hobbit.

20th Century Fox



Speaking to RTL, he said: "We're still in the early stages. Right now we're developing the software. I'm writing the scripts. We're designing all the creatures and characters and the settings, and so on.

"So, I'm not actually directing yet, but I'm doing all the other creative processes that lead up to that."

On how the filming process is going, he said: "It's going very well. I think it's going to be spectacular. You'll see new worlds, new habitats, new cultures.

"The primary conflict between the human view kind of dominating nature and the Na'vi view of being integrated into nature is the same, but it manifests itself in very different ways."

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Discussing the technology behind the new instalments, he explained that he and his team have been able to reduce the time it takes to make one film.

"The first film... took almost four years to make. We expect to be able to accelerate the process quite a bit, because we've improved a lot of the software and the computer graphics tools, and we've been working very closely with Weta Digital down here in New Zealand developing a whole new suite of tools to speed up the process."

He added that they are "looking at high frame rate".

"I'm studying that," he explained. "I haven't made a final decision yet, whether the entire film will be made at high frame rate or parts of it.

"You know, we'll be shooting at a native resolution of probably 4K and so then there should be a lot of true 4K theatres by then as well."

Finally, talking about the films' plots, he said: "The thing that's great about Avatar, it's such a rich world, I can explore any theme or any idea that I want. Once you've got the characters that an audience loves, it's great to surprise them and make changes and turns that they don't expect.

"And you don't have to spend so much time of the movie setting up all that stuff, because the audience will remember from the previous film."

The first 3D Avatar sequel is expected to be released in cinemas by Christmas 2016, with the following set for 2017 and late 2018 respectively.

Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana will return for the three films, which will start filming in 2015.

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