James Cameron walked the red carpet at the premiere of The Hobbit and expressed his desire to make the Avatar sequels at a high frame rate. Via The West Australian:

“If there is acceptance of 48, then that will pave the way for Avatar to take advantage of it,” Cameron told reporters.  ”We charged out ahead on 3D with Avatar, now Peter’s doing it with the Hobbit. It takes that kind of bold move to make change.”

Some have taken this quote to mean that Cameron has decided on 48 fps instead of 60 fps for the Avatar sequels.  But it’s more likely that he was referring to taking advantage of HFR 3D tech in general and not 48 fps in particular. Recent quotes from Cameron have indicated that he wants to make Avatar 2 & 3 at 60 fps, which would follow his tendency of introducing new technologies with each of his films. Hopefully someone will ask him whether this is still the plan.

Cameron is currently bunkering down on his recently purchased farm in New Zealand working on the scripts for Avatar 2 & 3, telling reporters that hopes to finish writing by February and to start filming by the end of 2013:

“I want to get these scripts nailed down, I don’t want to be writing the movie in post production. We kind of did that on the first picture, I ended up cutting out a lot of scenes and so on and I don’t want to do that again.”

I can’t wait for Avatar sequels that expand the mythology of the series and show us herertofore unseen parts of Pandora and the Alpha Centauri / Polyphemus system. And I expect to be blown away by the visuals once again, especially considering the advances in performance capture, CG, and animation that have come about since 2009.  Nothing has come close to matching Avatar in terms of grand escapism and world building in the years since it released: Cameron really does seem to be the only filmmaker shooting for the stars in terms of spectacle.