James Cameron's next film is also an MMOG

BusinessWeek interviews James Cameron about his forthcoming 3-D sci-fi film Project 880 (which many believe is a code-name for his long-gestating Avatar), and report that it could be the first major Hollywood project that audiences will experience first as a multiplayer game on the Net, and later on the silver screen.

"If you look at the relationship with movies and games in the past, it has been unidirectional. Either a great movie comes out followed by a pretty crappy game, or some game intellectual property led to a pretty bad movie. It's gotten to the point where that isn't even happening much anymore.

"What I'm visualizing is generating in parallel a game created by top developers that takes place in the same universe as the movie. There are some of the same characters, but players are empowered with their own characters. The game doesn't run against the action of the movie, but it doesn't necessarily have to follow the same action, either. Right now, actually, I'm looking at ways to co-generate my stuff in the film with the world with the games.

"The plan is to develop an MMOG that takes place in the same universe and release it a little while before the theatrical release. That way people can start playing around and learning about this new world. Then we present a narrative in it with the movie.

An edited transcript of the interview is available here.