If you’ve been holding your breath till your blue in the face in hopes that producer/director/asshole James Cameron would shoot a sequel to his blockbuster hit Avatar, go ahead and breathe. Cameron has announced plans to turn the film into a trilogy, beginning with a sequel set in Pandora’s ocean.

He tells the LA Times:

We created a broad canvas for the environment of film. That’s not just on Pandora, but throughout the Alpha Centauri AB system. And we expand out across that system and incorporate more into the story – not necessarily in the second film, but more toward a third film.

I’ve already announced this, so I might as well say it: Part of my focus in the second film is in creating a different environment – a different setting within Pandora. And I’m going to be focusing on the ocean on Pandora, which will be equally rich and diverse and crazy and imaginative, but it just won’t be a rain forest. I’m not saying we won’t see what we’ve already seen; we’ll see more of that as well.

Cameron also discussed plans for a theatrical re-release of Avatar in August, citing a loss of potential income due to limited  IMAX theater availability during the film’s initial run as motivation.

He explains:

We’re working on finishing an additional six minutes of the film — which includes a lot of Weta work — for a theatrical re-release in August. We were sold out of our Imax performances right up to the moment until they were contractually obligated to switch to “Alice in Wonderland,” so we know we left money on the table there.

And the 3-D really helped “Avatar” right up until the moment that it hurt it. And it hurt it at the moment “Alice” and then “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Clash of the Titans” came in and sucked up all the 3-D screens. We went from declining 8% a week to declining 50%.

Clearly, it wasn’t market forces directly; it was the availability of theaters. So we’re going to wait until there’s a time to come back in, inject the new footage into the mix and see if we can interest people in the “Avatar” experience in theaters.

Avatar is the highest earning film of all time and sparked the 3-D craze that has given theater owners the gall to raise prices on 3-D showings. Personally, I recommend picking up the Avatar bootleg.