Having thoroughly explored Pandora’s ground-level flora and fauna in Avatar, director James Cameron plans to plumb the distant moon’s watery depths in the sequel. In the follow-up to his 3-D sci-fi blockbuster, which is set for DVD release on Thursday, Cameron and his team will go deep, and wet, to conjure a vision of aquatic alien life forms.

“I’m going to be focusing on the ocean on Pandora,” Cameron told the Los Angeles Times‘ Hero Complex blog.

The seas of Pandora “will be equally rich and diverse and crazy and imaginative, but it just won’t be a rain forest,” the filmmaker said. “I’m not saying we won’t see what we’ve already seen; we’ll see more of that as well.”

Cameron’s fascination with oceans stretches back more than a decade. He developed much of the 3-D technology used in Avatar while working on his post-Titanic documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss, and took moviegoers beneath the sea in the 1992 epic The Abyss.

Cameron also confirmed plans to bring Avatar back to theaters in August in an expanded version that includes six extra minutes of footage.