Speaking to the NAB Technology Summit on Cinema, Landau revealed that the sequels will continue to push the boundaries on special effects, making use of "performance capture in water":

“We have kept a team of digital artists on from 'Avatar' in order to test how we can create performance capture underwater. We could simulate water [in CG], but we can’t simulate the actor’s experience, so we are going to capture performance in a tank.”

"We want to take advantage of the technologies brilliant people are putting out to make the next two movies even more emotionally engaging and visually tantalizing, and to really wrap up the story arc of our two main characters"

Though Cameron has been aiming for December 2014 and 2015 releases, a date has not yet been set.

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So, what do we get for the $20 ticket to a movie we've already seen? Nine extra minutes sprinkled throughout, including (cue '70s porno music) a new sex scene between Sam Worthington's character, Jake Sully, and his Na'vi lover, Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana.

The movie pushes 257 minutes -- a mind-numbing length that is, as Cameron put it, "strictly for hyperfans."

But is this rehashing any surprise?

"Avatar" was bound for milking, with two additional installments, undoubtedly with their own re-releases and myriad Criterion and collector's editions of Blu-ray discs, which, to the normal person, are indistinguishable. It is, after all, the most lucrative movie of all time. So the sci-fi epic was bound to be a trilogy whether Cameron wanted it or not. Movie executives would be idiots to kill this golden egg-laying goose.

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But the 3-D frenzy has also sparked a backlash. The naysayers include critics who argue that the essence of cinema is two-dimensional -- that its nature is bound up in its mural-like flatness, and that when you add another dimension, you turn it into something other than cinema (see Roger Ebert's widely quoted Newsweek piece calling 3-D "a waste of a perfectly good dimension"). Directors also resent the pressure to turn every big film into an event that costs three to five extra dollars to see -- either by shooting it in 3-D when they feel it isn't necessary, or by retroactively processing a 2-D movie to create a shoddy-looking, faux-3-D effect (this was done to three-quarters of "Alice in Wonderland" and all of "Clash of the Titans").

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An enjoyable blend of sweetness and silliness, with loads of giggles and just enough dark-edged humor to keep the adult companions interested (the Bank of Evil, where Gru seeks financing for his schemes, carries a small-print legend above its grandiose portals: "Formerly Lehman Brothers"), "Despicable Me" ranks as the second-best digital-animated family film of the summer. But when the gold medal belongs to "Toy Story 3," there's no shame in that. And unlike every other 3-D film I've seen since "Avatar," this one actually uses the technology with grace, daring and a sense of wonder. After the disgraceful gray smear of "The Last Airbender," that's wonderful to see. (Unlike that film, and "Alice in Wonderland," and 2010's other "up-converted" films, this one was actually made in 3-D, and the difference is obvious.)

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The ancient Greek action remake "Clash of the Titans" debuted at No. 1 with $61.4 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. Adding Thursday night preview screenings, the movie totaled $64.1 million.

Released by Warner Bros., "Clash of the Titans" features "Avatar" star Sam Worthington as demigod hero Perseus and Liam Neeson as his dad, Zeus, king of the Olympian deities.

Opening at No. 2 with $30.2 million was Lionsgate's sequel "Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too?", reuniting filmmaker Perry with Janet Jackson and other co-stars for another comic drama about eight friends and their relationships.

The previous weekend's top movie, DreamWorks Animation's Viking adventure "How to Train Your Dragon," ran a close third with $29.2 million, raising its 10-day total to $92.3 million.

Miley Cyrus' teen drama "The Last Song" premiered at No. 4 with $16.2 million. The Disney release raised its total to $25.6 million since opening Wednesday. Written by best-selling author Nicholas Sparks specifically for the "Hannah Montana" star, the movie casts Cyrus as a sullen teen spending the summer with her estranged father.

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Although I have mixed feelings about "The Hurt Locker" itself, and about the cultural-psychological reasons for its ascendancy, Bigelow herself is a genuine and strange cinematic genius who has paid her dues several times over and richly deserves her moment of triumph. (Is "Hurt Locker" her best film? Probably not. Her second-best? Not even sure about that.) I wish producer-screenwriter Mark Boal hadn't complicated Bigelow's big moment on the stage of the Kodak Theatre by persistently tugging on her elbow, like a kid in a department store who needed to use the john. That was odd.

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MOVIE: "The Hurt Locker," Summit Entertainment.

OSCARS: Six, including best picture and director.

RELEASED: June.

BOX OFFICE: $12.7 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Avatar," 20th Century Fox.

OSCARS: Three, including best art direction and visual effects.

RELEASED: December.

BOX OFFICE: $706 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Crazy Heart," 20th Century Fox.

OSCARS: Two, including best actor and original song.

RELEASED: December.

BOX OFFICE: $25 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire." Lionsgate.

OSCARS: Two, including best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay.

RELEASED: November.

BOX OFFICE: $47 million so far.

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MOVIE: "Up," The Walt Disney Co.

OSCARS: Two, including best animated feature and original score.

RELEASED: May.

BOX OFFICE: $293 million so far.

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The e-mails by Nicolas Chartier, one of four nominated producers for "The Hurt Locker" and who put up the financing to make the front-running film, violated the academy's rule against sending mailings that "attempt to promote any film or achievement by casting a negative light on a competing film or achievement," according to academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger.

The initial e-mail was sent Feb. 19 and obtained by The Associated Press. Subsequent e-mails, posted by the Los Angeles Times, showed Chartier giving more specific instructions, asking Oscar voters to rank "The Hurt Locker" at No. 1 and "Avatar" at No. 10 on this year's preferential ballot for the newly expanded best-picture category.

"Hurt Locker" distributor Summit Pictures said in a statement it was "completely unaware of any e-mails that were sent until we were alerted by the academy earlier this week."

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The title is hard to penetrate but the content is anything but. Based on a talk given at Google on Feb. 12 by Ying Zhu, a professor of media culture at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island, the essay lucidly covers an extraordinary amount of ground, but is especially enlightening as to how the Internet has created a discussion space that China's leaders must pay attention to, even as they strive to control it.

This discussion space is particularly potent when it merges with commercial forces increasingly at play in China's fast-growing economy, as demonstrated by the recent "Avatar" vs. Confucius throwdown.

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Variety reports that Judd Apatow and Paul Feig, the duo responsible for the much-celebrated "Freaks and Geeks," are set to produce a new film starring Kristen Wiig of "Saturday Night Live," who also co-wrote the screenplay. Apatow will handle producing duties, while Feig will direct the movie rumored to be about "women competing to plan a friend's wedding party."

In other movie-collaboration news, it turns out Scorsese and von Trier are not discussing plans to make an updated version of "Taxi Driver." The gossip gaining strength throughout the hype-incubator known as the Internet is "unequivocally false," said Scorsese’s publicist, Leslee Dart.

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It only takes four hours per week for a voting AMPAS member (or anyone else) to watch 100 films a year. That should be the minimum requirement for voting. Impossible to prove or to monitor? So what. Maybe a few more members could at least be guilted into screening a few more of the hundreds of eligible films, in all categories. I truly believe most AMPAS members try to exercise their voting privilege earnestly, even when they're ill-informed of the options. (I honestly believe that 90 percent of all AMPAS acting branch members who voted for Sandra Bullock in "The Blind Side" would have voted first for Catalina Saavedra had they seen "The Maid.") 

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Vadim Rizov of the Independent Eye  has a list of foreign films that would have been given the nod if nominations were based on a film's box-office success in its home country.

Where's Julianne Moore? Some, like Erik Childress of Cinematical, are wondering why Moore's performance in "A Single Man" for best supporting actress seems to have been replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal's in "Crazy Heart." Also, Childress speculates that the makeup category has something against the aliens in "District 9."

In equal confusion with Childress over the Gyllenhaal-over-Moore decision, Peter Knegt of indieWIRE has a list of 10 Oscar surprises, including "The Blind Side" even being in the running for best picture.

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Given the Academy's catholic desire to please all its contradictory and overlapping constituencies, it shouldn't have surprised anyone that the answer was all of the above. And yet, somehow, it did. I think of the five extra nomination slots as the "Dark Knight" apology awards, but this year offered no exact TDK-cognate, i.e., no commercial-critical behemoth likely to be snubbed by the Academy members' peculiar blend of middlebrow snobbery. (Just to be clear: I didn't like "The Dark Knight" much, personally. But that's irrelevant when it comes to the Oscars. Given its alleged seriousness, cultural impact and box-office firepower, a best-picture nom should have been automatic.)

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The big question this year is: Will an ex-husband prevent a woman from finally winning best director?

Since the first Academy Awards were given out in 1929, only three women have even been nominated for the directing Oscar: Lina Wertmuller in 1976 for "Seven Beauties," Jane Campion in 1993 for "The Piano" and Sofia Coppola in 2003 for "Lost in Translation." That’s right: It took nearly 50 years for Oscar to even wink in (or at) a woman’s direction. But then, there’s a very small pool of women to draw from for this award. Despite the gains women have made in almost all other careers, female directors are still a rarity, especially when you’re talking about movies that get major award consideration.

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A 42-year-man in Taiwan died of a stroke during a screening earlier this week. "It's likely that the over-excitement from watching the movie triggered his symptoms," his doctor said.

And in the truest test of cultural relevance, the New York Times just ran a "think" piece on the controversies surrounding "Avatar," rounding up a bunch of commentators and purported experts who projected their own dubious meanings into the film's success.

Now it's my turn.

Critic Manny Farber had it right, There are two kinds of movies: "White Elephants" and "Termite Art." One wins Oscars and rules at the box office. Critics and smarty-pants cineastes love the other.

What are we, then, to make of James Cameron?

Cameron is simultaneously a White Elephant filmmaker who makes huge, overstuffed popular fantasies and also, agonizingly, a Termite Artist. In the words of Farber, Termite Art "goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, likely as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity."

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According to press reports, the 2D version of "Avatar" is being pulled from 1628 movie screens in China to make room for a biopic on Confucius starring Chow Yun Fat. Both the L.A. Times and the London Times cite a murkily sourced article in Hong Kong's Apple Daily with the purported explanation:

Reportedly, the authorities have two reasons for this check on Avatar: first, it has taken in too much money and has seized market share from domestic films, and second, it may lead audiences to think about forced removal, and may possibly incite violence.

Forced removal, readers will recall, refers to the widespread practice in China in which developers brutally evict residents from their homes or businesses, often with the assistant of street thugs and goons, while the government turns a blind eye.

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