'Tar Prequel & DVD Talk

Avatar producer Jon Landau says that director James Cameron's writing a story that will essentially serve as a prequel to the film -- as a novel, not a movie.

While talking to MTV, Landau expains:

"Jim is going to write a novel himself," says the producer. "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. … [We] won't have time to do [these stories] in the movie, or maybe in sequels. [The novel will] give a foundation for the world."

Plot points from the movie will be fleshed out...

"We certainly have stories that are set before the movie opens and after," says Landau. "I think that what we want to do is find out what mediums those stories are best told in. There might be opportunities in publishing to tell some of the backstory, 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."

The book is expected to be finished by the end of the year; no word yet on a publisher or when it hits bookstores.

Landau also tells the site that Cameron has met with Marc Webb, the director of the upcoming Spider-Man Reboot to discuss the challenge of filming in 3-D. Landau says "we want to try to support that as much as possible."

Meanwhile in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. Cameron talked 'Tar DVD...Since the environmental message of the sci-fi epic is hard to miss, Look for its release on Earth Day April 22nd on DVD and Blu-ray.

But hold on as you might expect this might not be the Avatar disc you'll want to buy.

“We’ll do the Blu-ray and the standard def DVD April 22nd, that’s our plan as of right now, and that’ll be pretty much bare bones,"says Cameron.

"And then we’ll do a value-added DVD and a 3-D Blu-ray in I think November sometime.”

Blue cash cow...!!