AVATAR - INSIDE THE MIND OF JAMES CAMERON!

I MET James Cameron at London's Science Museum back in April, 2003 - and very personable he was too, readily signing my copy of Empire with Titanic on the front cover.

Twelve years after the release of the seminal sequel Terminator 2, he was in the capital to promote his then new movie Ghosts of the Abyss, a 3D underwater study of the wreck of the Titanic.

Now that his vision is becoming a reality, I do hope you enjoy reading this retrospective as a means of getting to know the man who might soon have the world's two highest grossing movies under his own belt!

Here are the three James Cameron stories we ran on different days in the middle of April, 2003.

IT IS, by any stretch of the imagination, the trip you never thought you'd make.

But now, the biggest boat in the world, which became the biggest movie in the world, is back to offer you the biggest 3D film experience in the world.

And it's right here in the heart of Brum on an IMAX screen that's five storeys high and 72ft wide.

Ghosts of the Abyss 3D is your chance to hop aboard an astonishing 61minute ride to the bottom of the sea, 91 years to the week after the 'unsinkable' Titanic crashed into an iceberg and promptly sank two hours and 40 minutes later on April 15, 1912.

Some 1,500 of the 2,223 people on board died and the ship has remained on the North Atlantic seabed 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland ever since.

But film director James Cameron, whose 1998 account of the disaster equalled Ben-Hur's record haul of 11 Oscars and became the first movie to gross more than $1 billion (£650 million), has been back to visit the wreck many times in a submersible.

To put Cameron's journeys into perspective, imagine walking to New Street Station from Spaghetti Junction - and then walking back again. That five-mile round trip is how far he had to go underwater each time to record some more of his 900 hours of footage.

Working with underwater pressures of 6,000lbs per square inch meant solving one technological problem after another in collaboration with brother Mike's deep-sea engineering company, Dark Matter LLC.

'You consider all the safety aspects before you dive and I was intimately involved with all of the engineering aspects,' Cameron tells me at London's Science Museum.

'But once the hatch closes, I never thought of any of those things.

'I wanted to explore the inside of the wreck, which hadn't been done in a definitive way, and uncover the stories of the people on the ship which are as fantastic as anything you can make up.'

Already on his fifth wife at just 48, the Canadian-born former truck driver - nickname 'Iron Jim' - is a film-set legend.

'I don't understand how anybody can work on a film for six months and just do it for the money,' he says.

'Five years after making Titanic, I'm still working through stuff in my mind that meant something to me.

'I've always done fairly well at film-making economically, but I promised myself I would then do things that were of interest to me.'

With daughters by Terminator actress turned fourth wife Linda Hamilton, and current actress wife Suzy Amis, James adds: 'I'm now a family man and wouldn't want to be away from home for a year unless it was worth it.'

ARNOLD Schwarzenegger is set to invite director James Cameron to a sneak preview of this summer's blockbuster, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

It was Cameron who turned the Austrian-born muscleman into Hollywood's biggest star with the original 1984 Terminator movie, Terminator 2 in 1991 and Arnie's last decent role, True Lies.

But because of Titanic and its 3D documentary spin-off Ghosts of the Abyss, Cameron passed on T3, which is being directed by Jonathan Mostow.

Due to open in the US on July 2 and in Britain on August 1, two days after Arnie's 56th birthday, it clearly represents the star's last shot at the big time.

'Arnold is a really good friend of mine and he's inviting me to see the film before it opens,' James privately tells me at London's Science Museum.

'I hope it's not an embarrassment for his sake, but do I want it to be better than my two films?

'No, of course not, because I'm really proud of those first two movies and they're mine.'

Candian-born James, 48, loves a challenge and he's currently stretching himself with another groundbreaking sci-fi thriller, to be shot in 3D and with animation included, too.

The physics graduate also still hopes to make the first film in space.

'I'm on NASA's advisory council and I think the shuttle will fly again by early next year,' he says.

'I might not be fit enough to go up myself in five years' time, but making the film is the most important thing.

'But the human race has got to keep that drive to explore because, although people think that everything has been mapped, that is so far from the case.'

THE wreck of the Titanic is set to disintegrate underwater 'within 30 years' accoding to James Cameron.

And that means any plans to bring it back to the surface are doomed to failure.

Biological formations called 'rusticles' are eroding the ship's steel layer by layer making any salvage plans prohibitively expensive, according to the Oscar-winning film director.

'You can't say it's impossible to raise the Titanic, but I think it would cost £25 billion,' he says.

'Only if there were weapons of mass destruction down there would the price be no object for George W Bush.

'Scientists estimate that the standing sections of the wreck will collapse sometime within 20 to 30 years and in less than a century the wreck will no longer be recognisable as a ship.'

Since equalling Ben-Hur's record of 11 Oscars with the movie Titanic in 1998, Canadian-born Cameron has continued his obsession with the 880 ft long, 60,000 ton liner.

It sank 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland 91 years ago today (APR 15) on day five of its maiden voyage, killing some 1,500 of the 2,223 passengers and crew on board.

But, having shot footage of the liner's exterior for use in his blockbuster, the director of hits like Terminator 2, True Lies and Aliens couldn't resist going back again and again.

The result is Ghosts of the Abyss, a 61-minute 3D movie which premieres at Birmingham's IMAX cinema tomorrow. (April 16)

Cameron shot 900 hours of footage, often working at two-and-a-half miles below the surface of the Atlantic, where the water pressure is 6,000lbs per square inch.

'You consider all the safety aspects before you dive and I was intimately involved with all of the engineering aspects,' he says.

'But once you are in the submarine and the hatch closes, I never though of any of those things.'

Now 48, the Canadian-born director who grew up near Niagara Falls still harbours plans to make a film in space - but realises that this year's shuttle disaster could kill his personal dream.

'The human race has got to keep that drive to explore,' he says.

'All the exploration hasn't been done - we are just scratching the surface.

'Fantasy is taking the place of real adventures.

'It's all market driven and the entertainment industry is just a barometer for public consciousness, but people are more interested in video games than adventure.'