At this point, James Cameron has been talking about adapting Yukito Kishiro’s manga ‘Battle Angel Alita’ into a film for six years. However, because of ‘Avatar’ and it’s sequels (and the potential theme park attraction), ‘Battle Angel’ has been steady pushed to the back burner until he wraps up his current commitments to his new stories from Pandora and the Na’vi. While he may not get to it for a while, the filmmaker insists that he’ll get there eventually.

At the TagDF technology forum in Mexico City, Cameron joined fellow filmmaker and friend Alfonso Cuarón to talk about a number of different things. During the discussion, The Film Stage reports that he reiterated his desire to direct ‘Battle Angel’ after the back-to-back ‘Avatar’ sequels. Here’s an excerpt from their article:

The filmmaker said that, to one-up ‘Avatar’, he would be shifting his focus from creating new technologies to expanding story and characters. This trans-human exploration (themes that have “haunted” him for years) will also extend to his long-rumored ‘Battle Angel’, which the filmmaker said he will begin to develop in 2017, presumably around the time he’s in post-production on ‘Avatar 3’.

While that’s all well and good, if production actually starts on the second and third ‘Avatar’ movies this year as planned,and goes through the lengthy post process for both films to be released by 2017, Cameron would probably be doing the same thing (potentially even more so to “one-up Avatar”) for ‘Battle Angel’, which would potentially lead to a 2019 release. That’s almost 15 years after he acquired the rights to the adaptation. Time will tell if he actually sticks to this plan, but judging by his hectic schedule post-‘Avatar’, plans could change a million times over between now and the release of the next ‘Avatar’ movie.

In addition to mentioning ‘Battle Angel’, the director also brought up the idea that Hollywood is using 3D too much and not in the right way. In the quote below, he sites films such as ‘Man of Steel’ and ‘Iron Man 3’ for being some of the prime offenders:

“I do not think Hollywood is using the 3D properly. The reason I say that Hollywood is not doing well is because it is automatic. [It’s] one thing [to shoot] in 3D and another to convert to 3D. [Studios are trying] to make money [by] pushing 3D to directors who are not comfortable or do not like 3D. ‘Man of Steel’, ‘Iron Man 3’, and all those movies should not necessarily be in 3D. If you spend $150 million on visual effects, the film is already going to be spectacular, perfect.”

Finally, in the video below, Cameron shares a fun story with his audience about how he received his “free” USC film school education:

Well, it’s no secret that James Cameron has a lot to say about a lot of things, but what do you think about these most recent statements from the man behind such classics as ‘The Terminator’, ‘Aliens’, and ‘Titanic’? Do you think he’ll actually get around to ‘Battle Angel’? Do you agree with his sentiments towards Hollywood and 3D? Share your thoughts in the comments below.