MTV caught up with James Cameron at the PIRATES 2 premiere; the reclusive helmer hasn’t made a film in NINE years, but he seems to be ramping up for two including the manga adaptation BATTLE ANGEL:

The first of these films is a long-rumored love story to be set against the backdrop of a planet-hopping future — and has been known by several names. ” ‘Project 880,’ we’ll probably release it as ‘Avatar,’ ” he said, mentioning two such aliases. “We haven’t locked in on the title yet, but this is what we are calling it. [There will be] possible sequels if it does well; if it tanks, no.”

“We’re going to do ‘Avatar’ first, and we’re in active pre-production on it right now,” he added. “I’m directing it; I’m directing all these films.

“And with ‘Battle Angel,’ also, we’ll do the same thing,” Cameron said of his second project, a sci-fi thriller about a female cyborg in the 26th century. ” ‘Battle Angel’ is actually designed as a three-film cycle. So the logic there is to make one and, if it hits, boom-boom on the other two.”

“If you want to know more about ‘Battle Angel,’ you can get the graphic novels,” the director said of his source material. “There’s a series of 10 graphic novels, the original 10, by a Japanese artist named [Yukito] Kishiro.”

The tech-minded Cameron added that although he watched with great interest as “Sin City” filmmaker Robert Rodriguez reinvented the graphic-novel movie with his green-screen breakthroughs, “Angel” won’t be such a slave to the colored page. “It’ll be a cinematic style; it won’t be a moving graphic novel,” he revealed. “I think what Robert did with ‘Sin City’ was a spectacular visual experiment; I think it worked brilliantly, but that’s not what I’m going for. It’s more of a cinematic, photo-real feel.”

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