Ex-Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington, left) is sent to establish a human settlement on the planet Pandora, where he falls in love with humanoid Neytiri (Zo Saldana) in James Cameron's Avatar. (Twentieth Century Fox)

Canadian director James Cameron will be writing a novel based on his Oscar-nominated epic Avatar.

The book will not be a re-hash of the movie's plot but rather a written prequel, delving into earlier events in the lives of characters.

"There are things you can do in books that you can't do in films," the director told the Wall Street Journal.

"I told myself, if it made money, I'd write a book."

The 55-year-old filmmaker indicated he would include interior monologues by the characters as well as provide a broader perspective on Pandora, the fictional planet invented for the movie.

In the movie, Pandora's indigenous Na'vi race is fighting human development of the planet. The humans are after a highly-prized natural resource that exists only on Pandora.

The thinly-veiled environmental morality tale is nominated for nine Oscars, including best direction and best movie.

The film's producer, Jon Landau, went into a deeper description of the novel, telling MTV that it would provide "all the stories we didn't have time to deal with — like the schoolhouse and Sigourney [Weaver's character] teaching at the schoolhouse; Jake on Earth and his backstory [and] Colonel Quaritch, how he ended up there."

Landau predicted the book will be out by the end of 2010.

Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time.