In an interview with Market Saw yesterday, James Cameron opened up about his plans to re-release his environmentally-conscious alien epic “Avatar” with an additional nine minutes of pure CG footage, the upcoming novelization of the film he’s currently working on, the status of “Avatar 2,” the future of 3D and a host of other juicy tidbits.

The additional footage in the “Avatar” re-release will contain rainforest footage, a hunting sequence, an emotional scene near the end, a Na’vi counterattack after the bulldozer attack, some awesome high flying action and more. “The best CG in the film has been added as far as facial performance” Cameron said.

As for the the highly anticipated second and third “Avatar” films which Cameron is set on making, he said he has an overall story arc for both films, but has been reworking the script for “Avatar 2″ after spending time recently with native tribes in the Amazon basin.  It may yet be a while before that script is ready for shooting.

Cameron is currently working furiously on the “Avatar” novel.  It will correspond with the events of the first movie though it is not clear how close to the that story it will tread.  It will be a few months before that’s finished and will be even longer before it’s ready for bookstores.

A staunch supporter of 3D technology in film, Cameron was confident that what many consider a gimmick is here to stay. He predicted that within two years 3D cameras will have flooded the film and TV industries and the current concerns like “It’s too difficult. There are too many problems. It costs too much. It adds 6 months to post-production…” will be a thing of the past.

The mega filmmaker also talked about producing Guillermo del Toro’s “At the Mountains of Madness,” the technical aspects of converting “Titanic” to 3D and his conversations with Steven Spielberg about converting his older films to 3D. For the full interview click here.