`Avatar` sequel to explore Pandora`s oceans

Los Angeles: Oscar-winner James Cameron, who celebrated his 56th birthday today underwater Lake Baikal in Siberia, is planning to explore Pandora`s oceans in the sequel to his 2009 blockbuster `Avatar`.

The sci-fi film, which revolved around the people of Pandora, a fictitious world created in 3D by Cameron , is all set for a special edition re-release on August 27. Cameron wants the next installment of `Avatar` franchise to explore Pandora`s oceans. The `Titanic` director said that his fictional planet`s aquatic life was equally rich and "diverse and crazy and imaginative" as its famously colourful land-based equivalent. "I think what we should do there because we`ll have to have characters that are in and under the water is that we should actually capture them underwater. It`s not the same as going diving, but I like to keep my diving, which I do for pleasure, separate from work," the director said. Cameron`s is known for his fondness for diving. His fascination with underwater world has been explored in films like `Titanic`, and `The Abyss`. The director is currently in Siberia, exploring the largest freshwater Lake Baikal in Siberia. Cameron was invited by his Russian friend Anatoly Sagalevich, who had helped the film director in the underwater shooting of `Titanic` in 1997. "James Cameron dove to the bottom of Lake Baikal in the south near Cape Tolsty on the Mir-1 piloted by Anatoly Sagalevich," a spokesman for the Lake Baikal preservation foundation was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti. He said Cameron had already submerged over 200 meters during the last three hours and the crew plans to explore the shoreline. Scientists have so far fixed the maximum depth of the lake at 1.68 kilometres (5,511. 81 feet), and each dive on a submersible costs some 2 million roubles (USD 64,800). Cameron is joined on board the Mir-1 submersible by an Australian explorer, Michael MacDowell and Maria Wilhelm the author of the book that inspired Cameron`s 3D blockbuster `Avatar`. PTI