Avatar (2009 film)

Avatar
On the upper half of poster are the faces of a man and a blue cat-like alien with yellow eyes, with a giant planet on the background and the text "From the director of Terminator 2 and Titanic" atop the image. Below, is a four-winged animal flying across a landscape with floating islands during sunset, with the title "James Cameron's Avatar", film credits and the release date at the bottom. Theatrical poster
Directed by	James Cameron
Written by	James Cameron
Produced by	James Cameron Jon Landau
Starring	Sam Worthington Zoe Saldana Stephen Lang Michelle Rodriguez Sigourney Weaver Giovanni Ribisi Joel David Moore C. C. H. Pounder Wes Studi Laz Alonso
Cinematography	Mauro Fiore
Edited by	James Cameron John Refoua Stephen E. Rivkin
Music by	James Horner
Production companies	Lightstorm Entertainment Dune Entertainment Ingenious Film Partners
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	December 10, 2009 (2009-12-10) (London premiere) December 18, 2009 (United States)
Running time	162 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$237 million
Box office	$1,839,741,499

Avatar is a 2009 American science fiction epic film written and directed by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez and Stephen Lang. The film is set in the year 2154 on Pandora, a moon in the Alpha Centauri star system. Humans are engaged in mining Pandora's reserves of a precious mineral, called unobtanium, while the Na'vi, a race of indigenous humanoids, resist the colonists' expansion, which threatens the continued existence of the Na'vi and the Pandoran ecosystem. The film's title refers to the genetically engineered Na'vi bodies used by a few of the film's human characters to interact with the Na'vi.

Development on Avatar began in 1994, when Cameron wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film. Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron's previous film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999, but according to Cameron, the technology was not yet available to portray his vision of the film. Work on the language for the film's extraterrestrial race began in summer 2005, and Cameron began developing the script and fictional universe in early 2006.

The film was released in traditional 2-D, as well as in 3-D, using the RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, and IMAX 3D formats. Avatar is officially budgeted at $237 million; other estimates put the cost at $280–310 million to produce and $150 million for marketing. The film is being touted as a breakthrough in terms of filmmaking technology, for its development of 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking with cameras that were specially designed for the film's production.

Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was released internationally on December 16, 2009, and in North America on December 18, 2009, to critical acclaim and commercial success. It grossed $27 million on its opening day domestically (in the United States and Canada) and $77 million domestically on its opening weekend. It opened two days earlier internationally and grossed $232 million worldwide in its first five days of international release. Within three weeks of its release, it had grossed over $1 billion worldwide. It currently stands as the second-highest-grossing film of all time, exceeded only by Titanic. Due to the film's success, Cameron reported the possibility of two sequels.

Plot

In 2154, the RDA corporation is mining Pandora, a lush, Earth-like moon of the planet Polyphemus, in the Alpha Centauri star system. Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) heads the mining operation, which employs Marines for security. The corporation intends to exploit Pandora's reserves of a valuable mineral called unobtanium. Pandora is inhabited by the Na'vi, a ten-foot-tall blue-skinned species of sapient humanoids with tails. The Na'vi live in harmony with nature, worshiping a mother goddess called Eywa.

Pandora's atmosphere is toxic to humans, forcing them to use breathing masks. Attempting to improve relations with the natives and learn about Pandora's biology, scientists grow Na'vi bodies modified with human DNA, called avatars, controlled by genetically matched, mentally-linked human operators. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic former marine, replaces his twin brother, a scientist trained to be an avatar operator, who has been killed. Doctor Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the head of the Avatar Program, considers Sully an inadequate replacement for his brother and relegates him to a bodyguard role.

In their avatar forms, Augustine, biologist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) and Jake leave the base on a mission to take biological samples and reestablish peaceful relations with the Na'vi. A predator attacks the group, and Jake becomes separated and lost. Facing more predators at night in Pandora's jungle, he is rescued by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a female Na'vi. Neytiri brings Jake to Hometree, which is inhabited by her clan, the Omaticaya. Neytiri's mother Mo'at (C. C. H. Pounder), the clan's shaman, shows interest in the warrior "Dream-walker" and instructs her daughter to teach Jake their ways. Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), leader of the security forces, enlists Jake to bring him intelligence about the natives that could help RDA convince the Na'vi to leave Hometree so the company can mine the huge unobtanium deposit underneath Hometree. He promises Jake that he will help him obtain the expensive neuroregeneration treatment to restore the use of his legs.

At first, Jake delivers key strategic information to Quaritch. Augustine becomes suspicious and relocates herself, Jake and Norm to a remote scientific outpost with an avatar link module. Over three months, Jake grows close to Neytiri and the Omaticaya, eventually rejecting RDA's agenda. He is initiated into the Omaticaya, and he and Neytiri choose each other as mates. Jake reveals his change of allegiance when he disables a bulldozer as it destroys the tribe's "Tree of Voices". Quaritch secretly monitors Jake's video diary, where Jake admits that the Omaticaya will never abandon Hometree. Selfridge orders Hometree destroyed.

Augustine argues that the destruction of Hometree could affect the bio-botanical neural network that all Pandoran organisms are connected to, and Selfridge gives Jake and Augustine one hour to convince the Na'vi to leave Hometree. Jake reveals his original mission to the Omaticaya, and Neytiri sees him as a betrayer. Jake and Augustine's avatars are taken captive. Quaritch's forces arrive and destroy Hometree, killing Neytiri's father, who is the clan chief, Eytucan (Wes Studi), and many others. Jake and Augustine are disconnected from their avatars and detained for treason along with Norm. Trudy Chacón (Michelle Rodriguez), a security force pilot disgusted with Quaritch's violence, breaks them out and flies them to the link module, which they relocate to a new, hidden place. During their escape, Quaritch shoots Augustine.

To regain the trust of the Omaticaya, Jake tames a Toruk, a powerful flying beast that only five Na'vi have ever tamed. Jake finds the Omaticaya at the sacred Tree of Souls and pleads with Mo'at to heal Augustine. The clan attempts to transfer Grace from her dying body into her Na'vi avatar with the aid of the Tree, but she succumbs to her injuries before the transfer is complete. Mo'at declares that "she is with Eywa now".

With the assistance of Neytiri and Tsu'Tey (Laz Alonso), the new leader of the Omaticaya, Jake assembles over two thousand of Na'vi from other clans to repel the humans. Jake prays to Eywa, via neural connection to the Tree of Souls, to intercede on behalf of the Na'vi in the coming battle. Quaritch notes the mobilization of Na'vi clans and convinces Selfridge to authorize a preemptive strike on the Tree of Souls. Because it is a center of Na'vi religion and culture, its destruction would leave the Na'vi too demoralized to resist further encroachment.

As the security forces attack, the Na'vi strike, using their knowledge of the forest, but suffer heavy casualties, among them Tsu'Tey and Trudy. Suddenly, the Pandoran wildlife joins the attack on the corporation's forces, overwhelming them. Neytiri interprets this as Eywa answering Jake's prayer. Jake destroys the main bomber before it can reach the Tree of Souls. Quaritch finds the avatar link module where Jake's human body is located and attacks it, exposing Jake to Pandora's atmosphere. Neytiri kills Quaritch and saves Jake. With the attack repelled, Neytiri and Jake reaffirm their love as she sees his human body for the first time.

Selfridge and the remaining corporate personnel are expelled from Pandora, while Jake, Norm, and the scientists studying Pandora are allowed to remain. Jake is seen wearing the insignia of the Omaticaya leader. The clan performs the ritual that permanently transfers Jake from his human body into his Na'vi avatar.

Cast and characters

Main article: Fictional universe in Avatar

Humans

• Sam Worthington as Corporal Jake Sully, the film's protagonist, is a disabled Marine who becomes part of the Avatar Program. His background as a marine helps the Na'vi warriors relate to him. Cameron cast the Australian actor after searching the world for promising young actors, preferring relative unknowns to keep the budget down. Worthington, who was living in his car at the time, auditioned twice early in development, and he has signed on for possible sequels. Cameron felt that because Worthington had not done a major film, he was "game for anything", giving the character "a quality that is really real. He has that quality of being a guy you'd want to have a beer with, and he ultimately becomes a leader who transforms the world".

• Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine, an exobiologist and head of the Avatar Program. She mentors Jake Sully, and was an advocate of peaceful relations with the Na'vi, setting up a school to teach them English. Weaver dyed her hair red for the part. The character was named "Shipley" at one point, a reference to the character she played in Aliens which was directed by Cameron. Weaver said that Augustine reminded her of Cameron, being "very driven and very idealistic".

• Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacón, a Marine combat pilot assigned to support the Avatar Program. Cameron had wanted to work with Rodriguez since seeing her in Girlfight.

• Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge, the corporate administrator for the RDA mining operation and one of the film's primary antagonists.

• Joel David Moore as Norm Spellman, an anthropologist who studies plant and nature life as part of the Avatar Program. He arrives on Pandora at the same time as Jake Sully and operates an avatar. Although he is expected to lead the diplomatic contact with the Na'vi, it turns out that Jake has the personality more calculated to win the natives' respect.

• Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch, the head of the mining operation's security detail. Fiercely loyal to his cause, he has a profound disregard for Pandora's inhabitants, and serves as the film's primary antagonist. Lang had unsuccessfully auditioned for a role in Cameron's Aliens (1986), but the director remembered Lang and sought him for Avatar. Michael Biehn, who was in Aliens, read the script and watched some of the 3D footage with Cameron, but was ultimately not cast in the role.

• Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel, a scientist who works in the Avatar Program.

Na'vi

• Zoe Saldana as Neytiri, princess of the Omaticaya, the Na'vi clan central to the story, who is attracted to Jake because of his bravery. The character, like all the Na'vi, was created using performance capture, and its visual aspect is entirely computer generated. Saldana has also signed on for potential sequels.

• C. C. H. Pounder as Mo'at, the Omaticaya's spiritual leader, Neytiri's mother, and consort to clan leader Eytucan.

• Laz Alonso as Tsu'tey, heir to the chieftainship of the tribe, and Neytiri's betrothed, prior to the events of the film.

• Wes Studi as Eytucan, the Omaticaya's clan leader, Neytiri's father and husband of Mo'at.

Production

Origins

In 1994, director James Cameron wrote a 80-page scriptment for Avatar, reportedly in just two weeks. In August 1996, Cameron announced that after completing Titanic, he would film Avatar, which would make use of synthetic, or computer-generated, actors. The project would cost $100 million and involve at least six actors in leading roles "who appear to be real but do not exist in the physical world". Visual effects house Digital Domain, with whom Cameron has a partnership, joined the project, which was supposed to begin production in the summer of 1997 for a 1999 release. However, Cameron felt that the technology had not caught up with the story and vision that he intended to tell. He decided to concentrate on making documentaries and refining the technology for the next few years.

In June 2005, Cameron was announced to be working on a project tentatively titled Project 880, concurrently with another project, Battle Angel. It was later revealed in a Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story that 20th Century Fox had fronted $10 million to Cameron to film a proof-of-concept clip for Avatar, which he showed to Fox execs in October 2005. By December, Cameron said that he planned to film Battle Angel first for a mid 2007 release, and to film Project 880 for a 2009 release. In February 2006, Cameron said he had switched goals for the two film projects – Project 880 was now scheduled for 2007 and Battle Angel for 2009. He indicated that the release of Project 880 would possibly be delayed until 2008.

Later that February, Cameron revealed that Project 880 was "a retooled version of Avatar", a film that he had tried to make years earlier, citing the technological advances in the creation of the computer-generated characters Gollum, King Kong and Davy Jones. Cameron had chosen Avatar over Battle Angel after completing a five-day camera test in the previous year. Even before the announcement, Cameron's early scriptment for Avatar, which had circulated on the Internet for years, was found to no longer be available.

Development

From January to April 2006, Cameron worked on the script and developed a culture for the film's aliens, the Na'vi. Their language was created by Dr. Paul Frommer, a linguist at USC. The Na'vi language has a vocabulary of about 1000 words, with some 30 added by Cameron. The tongue's phonemes include ejective consonants (such as the "kx" in "skxawng") that are found in the Amharic language of Ethiopia, and the initial "ng" that Cameron may have taken from New Zealand Māori. Actress Sigourney Weaver and the film's set designers met with Jodie S. Holt, professor of plant physiology at UC Riverside, to learn about the methods used by botanists to study and sample plants, and to discuss ways to explain the communication between Pandora's organisms depicted in the film.

In July 2006, Cameron announced that he would film Avatar for a mid 2008 release and planned to begin principal photography with an established cast by February 2007. The following August, the visual effects studio Weta Digital signed on to help Cameron produce Avatar. Stan Winston, who had collaborated with Cameron in the past, joined Avatar to help with the film's designs.

In September 2006, Cameron was announced to be using his own Reality Camera System to film in 3-D. The system would use two high-definition cameras in a single camera body to create depth perception.

Meanwhile, while all this preparation was going on, Fox was wavering because of its painful experience with cost overruns and delays on Cameron's last picture, Titanic, even though Cameron rewrote Avatar's script to combine several characters together and offered to cut his fee in case the film flopped. Cameron installed a traffic light with the amber signal lit outside of co-producer Jon Landau's office to represent the film's uncertain future. In mid-2006, Fox told Cameron "in no uncertain terms that they were passing on this film," so he began shopping it around to other studios, and showed his proof-of-concept to Dick Cook (then chairman of The Walt Disney Company). However, when Disney attempted to take over, Fox exercised its right of first refusal. In October 2006, Fox finally agreed to commit to making Avatar after Ingenious Media agreed to back the film, which reduced Fox's financial exposure to less than half of the film's official $237 million budget. After Fox greenlighted Avatar, Cameron and Landau switched the traffic light to green.

In December 2006, Cameron described Avatar as "a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence [...] an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience [that] aspires to a mythic level of storytelling". The January 2007 press release described the film: "Avatar is also an emotional journey of redemption and revolution. It is the story of a wounded former Marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in biodiversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival," and "We're creating an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language."

Estimates put the cost of the film at about $280–310 million to produce and an estimated $150 million for marketing, noting that about $30 million in tax credits will lessen the financial impact on the studio and its financiers. However, a studio spokesperson, speaking with film website The Wrap, said that the budget "is $237 million, with $150 million for promotion, end of story".

Themes and inspirations

A blue humanoid alien wearing battle paint, holding a futuristic weapon.

Avatar has vivid scenes of combat, but is also a film about peace. In this scene, Jake Sully flies into battle to save his newly adopted tribe.

Avatar is primarily an action-adventure journey of self-discovery, in the context of imperialism and biodiversity. Cameron said his inspiration was "every single science fiction book I read as a kid", and that he was particularly striving to update the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter series. The director has acknowledged that Avatar shares themes with the films At Play in the Fields of the Lord and The Emerald Forest, which feature clashes between cultures and civilizations, and that the film shares connections with Dances With Wolves, where a battered soldier finds himself drawn to the culture he was initially fighting against.

In a 2007 interview with Time magazine, Cameron was asked about the meaning of the term "avatar", to which he replied, "It's an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking a flesh form. In this film what that means is that the human technology in the future is capable of injecting a human's intelligence into a remotely located body, a biological body".

The look of the Na'vi—the humanoids indigenous to Pandora—was inspired by a dream that Cameron's mother had, long before he started work on Avatar. In her dream, she saw a twelve-foot-tall blue-skinned woman, which he thought was "kind of a cool image". He included similar creatures in his first screenplay (written in 1976 or 1977), which featured a planet with a native population of "gorgeous" tall blue aliens. These later became the basis for the Na'vi. On the specific reason for the choice of blue as their skin color, Cameron said "I just like blue. It's a good color... plus, there's a connection to the Hindu deities, which I like conceptually."

Pandora's floating "Hallelujah Mountains" were inspired in part by the Chinese Huang Shan mountains.

Production design for the film took several years. The film had two different production designers, and two separate Art departments, one of which focused on the flora and fauna of Pandora, and another that created human machines and human factors. To create the human mining colony on Pandora, production designers visited the Noble Clyde Boudreaux drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico during June 2007. They photographed, measured and filmed every aspect of the rig, which was later replicated on-screen with photorealistic CGI during post-production. For the film's floating "Hallelujah Mountains", the designers drew inspiration from "many different types of mountains, but mainly the karst limestone formations in China." Some sources noted the similarities between the film's production design and the artwork of album cover artist Roger Dean, which features psychedelic images of floating rock formations and dragons. When the question was posed to Cameron, he replied, "It might have been [inspired by Dean]... Back in my pot-smoking days."

For the love story between characters Jake and Neytiri, Cameron applied a star-crossed love theme, and acknowledged its similarity to the pairing of Jack and Rose from his film Titanic. Both couples come from radically different cultures that are contemptuous of their relationship and are forced to choose sides between the competing communities. "They both fall in love with each other, but they need to fight side-by-side, and so there's that kind of requirement to let the other person go in order to do what you need to do, which is kind of interesting," said Cameron. He felt that whether or not the Jake and Neytiri love story would be perceived as believable partially hinged on Neytiri's attractiveness. "So the physiological differences — the more alien we make them in the design phase, we just kept asking ourselves — basically, the crude version is: 'Well, would you wanna do it?'" stated Cameron. The all-male crew of artists were used to perfect the Na'vi attractiveness. Though Cameron felt Jake and Neytiri do not fall in love right away, Worthington and Saldana, the characters' portrayers, disagreed. Cameron said Worthington and Saldana "had a great chemistry" during filming.

At Comic Con 2009, Cameron told attendees that he wanted to make "something that has this spoonful of sugar of all the action and the adventure and all that". He wanted this to thrill him "as a fan" but also have a conscience "that maybe in the enjoying of it makes you think a little bit about the way you interact with nature and your fellow man". He added that "the Na'vi represent something that is our higher selves, or our aspirational selves, what we would like to think we are" and that even though there are good humans within the film, the humans "represent what we know to be the parts of ourselves that are trashing our world and maybe condemning ourselves to a grim future".

"Some of these things you can’t raise without being called unpatriotic, but I think it’s very patriotic to question a system that needs to be corralled, or it becomes Rome."

James Cameron

Cameron has acknowledged that Avatar implicitly criticizes America's War in Iraq and the impersonal nature of mechanized warfare in general. In reference to the use of the term "shock and awe" in the film, Cameron stated, "We know what it feels like to launch the missiles. We don't know what it feels like for them to land on our home soil, not in America." However, in a later interview, he said, "The film is definitely not anti-American." A scene in the film portrays the violent destruction of the towering Na'vi Hometree, which collapses in flames after a missile attack, coating the landscape with ash and floating embers. When asked about the scene's visual resemblance to the events of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Cameron said he had been "surprised at how much it did look like September 11".

Filming

Principal photography for Avatar began in April 2007, and was done around parts of Los Angeles as well as New Zealand. Cameron described the film as a hybrid with a full live-action shoot in combination with computer-generated characters and live environments. "Ideally at the end of the day the audience has no idea which they're looking at," Cameron said. The director indicated that he had already worked four months on nonprincipal scenes for the film. The live action was shot with a modified version of the proprietary digital 3-D Fusion Camera System, developed by Cameron and Vince Pace. In January 2007, Fox had announced that 3-D filming for Avatar would be done at 24 frames per second despite Cameron's strong opinion that a 3-D film requires higher frame rate to make strobing less noticeable. According to Cameron, the film is composed of 60% computer-generated elements and 40% live action, as well as traditional miniatures. Motion-capture photography would last 31 days at the Hughes Aircraft stage in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, California. In October, Cameron was scheduled to shoot live-action in New Zealand for another 31 days. More than a thousand people worked on the production. In preparation of the filming sequences, all of the actors underwent professional training specific to their characters such as archery, horseback riding, firearms, and hand to hand combat. They also received language and dialect training in the Na'vi language created for the film. Prior to shooting the film, Cameron also sent the cast to the jungle in Hawaii to get a feel for a rainforest setting before shooting on the soundstage.

Visual effects

A number of revolutionary visual effects techniques were used in the production of Avatar. According to Cameron, work on the film had been delayed since the 1990s to allow the techniques to reach the necessary degree of advancement to adequately portray his vision of the film. The director planned to make use of photorealistic computer-generated characters, created using new motion-capture animation technologies he had been developing in the 14 months leading up to December 2006.

Cameron pioneered a specially-designed camera built into a 6-inch boom that allowed the facial expressions of the actors to be captured and digitally recorded for the animators to use later.

During filming, Cameron made use of his virtual camera system, a new way of directing motion-capture filmmaking. The system displays an augmented reality on a monitor, placing the actor's virtual counterparts into their digital surroundings in real time, allowing the director to adjust and direct scenes just as if shooting live action. According to Cameron, "It's like a big, powerful game engine. If I want to fly through space, or change my perspective, I can. I can turn the whole scene into a living miniature and go through it on a 50 to 1 scale." Using conventional techniques, the complete virtual world cannot be seen until the motion-capture of the actors is complete. Cameron described the system as a "form of pure creation where if you want to move a tree or a mountain or the sky or change the time of day, you have complete control over the elements". Cameron gave fellow directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson a chance to test the new technology. Spielberg and George Lucas were also able to visit the set to watch Cameron direct with the equipment.

Other technological innovations include "The Volume", a motion-capture stage six times larger than any previously used, and an improved method of capturing facial expressions, enabling full performance capture. To achieve the latter, actors wore individually-made skull caps fitted with a tiny camera positioned in front of the actors' faces; the information collected about their facial expressions and eyes is then transmitted to computers. According to Cameron, the method allows the filmmakers to transfer 100% of the actors' physical performances to their digital counterparts.

Digital effects rendering was performed at Weta Digital's data centre in Wellington, New Zealand. The 10,000-square foot server farm makes use of 4,000 Hewlett-Packard servers, and occupies the 193 spot in the Top 500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. Creating the virtual world of Pandora required over a petabyte of digital storage. Each minute of the final footage for Avatar occupied 17.28 gigabytes of storage. To help finish preparing the special effects sequences on time, Industrial Light & Magic was brought on board, working alongside Weta Digital to create the battle sequences.

Music and soundtrack

Main article: Avatar: Music from the Motion Picture

Composer James Horner scored the film, his third collaboration with Cameron after Aliens and Titanic. Horner recorded parts of the score with a small chorus singing in the alien language Na'vi in March 2008. He also worked with Wanda Bryant, an ethnomusicologist, to create a music culture for the alien race. The first scoring sessions were planned to take place in Spring 2009. Horner composed the score as two different scores merged into one. He first created a score that reflected the Na'vi way of sound and then combined it with a separate "traditional" score to drive the film. British singer Leona Lewis was chosen to sing the theme song for the film, called "I See You". An accompanying music video, directed by Jake Nava, premiered December 15, 2009 on MySpace.

Marketing

Cameron at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con promoting the film.

Cameron, producer Jon Landau, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, and Sigourney Weaver appeared at a panel, moderated by Tom Rothman, at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con on July 23. Twenty-five minutes of footage was screened in Dolby 3D. Weaver and Cameron appeared at additional panels to promote the film, speaking on the 23rd and 24th respectively. James Cameron announced at the Comic-Con Avatar Panel that August 21 will be 'Avatar Day'. On this day the trailer for the film was released in all theatrical formats. The official game trailer and toy line of the film were also unveiled on this day.

The 129 second trailer was released online on August 20, 2009. The new 210-second trailer was premiered in theatres on October 23, 2009, then soon after premiered online on Yahoo! on October 29, 2009, to positive reviews. An extended version in IMAX 3D received overwhelmingly positive reviews. The Hollywood Reporter said that audience expectations were coloured by "the [same] establishment skepticism that preceded Titanic" and suggested the showing reflected the desire for original storytelling. The teaser has been among the most viewed trailers in the history of film marketing, reaching the 1st place of all trailers viewed on Apple.com with 4 million views. On October 30, to celebrate the opening of the first 3D cinema in Vietnam, Fox allowed Megastar Cinema to screen exclusive 16 minutes of Avatar to a number of press.

The three-and-a-half minute trailer of the film premiered live on November 1, 2009 during a Dallas Cowboys football game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas on the Diamond Vision screen, the world's largest video display, and to TV audiences viewing the game on Fox. It is said to be the largest live motion picture trailer viewing in history.

The Coca-Cola Company collaborated with Twentieth Century Fox to launch a worldwide marketing campaign to promote the film. The highlight of the campaign was the website AVTR.com. Specially-marked bottles and cans of Coca-Cola Zero, when held in front of a webcam, enabled users to interact with the website's 3D features using augmented reality (AR) technology.

The film was heavily promoted in an episode of the Fox Network series Bones in the episode "The Gamer In The Grease" (Season 5, Episode 9). Avatar star Joel David Moore has a recurring role on the program, and is seen in the episode anxiously awaiting the release of the film. A week prior to American release, Zoe Saldana promoted the film on Adult Swim when she was interviewed by an animated Space Ghost.

Books

Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora, a 224-page book in the form of a field guide to the film's fictional setting of the planet of Pandora, was released by Harper Entertainment on November 24, 2009. It is presented as a compilation of data collected by the humans about Pandora and the life on it, written by Maria Wilhelm and Dirk Mathison. HarperFestival also released Wilhelm's 48-page James Cameron's Avatar: The Reusable Scrapbook for children. The Art of Avatar: James Cameron's Epic Adventure was released on November 30, 2009 by Abrams Books. The book features detailed production artwork from the film, including production sketches, illustrations by Lisa Fitzpatrick, and film stills. Producer John Landau wrote the foreword, Cameron wrote the epilogue, and director Peter Jackson wrote the preface.

In a 2009 interview, Cameron said that he planned to write a novel version of Avatar some time after the film released.

Video games

Main article: James Cameron's Avatar: The Game

Cameron chose Ubisoft Montreal to create an Avatar game for the film in 2007. The filmmakers and game developers collaborated heavily, and Cameron decided to include some of Ubisoft's vehicle and creature designs into the film. James Cameron's Avatar: The Game was released on December 1, 2009, for most home video game consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, iPhone), Microsoft Windows and December 8 for PSP.

Action figures

Mattel Toys announced in December 2009 that it would be introducing a line of Avatar action figures. Each action figure will be made with a 3D web tag, called an i-TAG, that consumers can scan using a web cam, revealing unique on-screen content that is special to each specific action figure. A series of toys representing six different characters from the film are also being distributed in McDonald's Happy Meals in the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Venezuela and China.

Release

Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was released theatrically worldwide from December 16–18. The film was originally set for release on May 22, 2009 during filming, but was pushed back to allow more post-production time, and to also give more time for theatres worldwide to install 3-D projectors. Cameron stated that the film's aspect ratio would be 1.78:1 for 3-D screenings and that a 2.39:1 image would be extracted for 2-D screenings. The first photo of the film was released on August 14, 2009, and Empire magazine released exclusive images from the film in its October issue. Avatar was released in a total of 3,457 theatres in the US, of which 2,032 theatres are running it in 3-D. In total 90% of all advance ticket sales for Avatar were for 3-D screenings.

Internationally, Avatar opened on a total of 14,604 screens in 106 territories, of which 3,671 were showing the film in 3-D (producing 56% of the first weekend gross).

The film was simultaneously presented in IMAX 3-D format, opening in 178 theaters in the United States on December 18. The international IMAX release included 58 theaters beginning on December 16, and 25 more theaters were to be added in the coming weeks. The IMAX release was the company's widest to date, a total of 261 theaters worldwide. The previous IMAX record opening was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which opened in 161 IMAX theatres in the US, and about 70 international.

Box office

Avatar earned $3,537,000 from midnight screenings domestically (United States and Canada), with the initial 3-D release limited to 2,200 screens. The film earned $27 million on its opening day, and $77 million over its opening weekend, making it the second largest December opening ever behind I Am Legend, and the 25th largest national United States weekend opening, despite a blizzard which blanketed the East Coast of the United States and reportedly hurt its opening weekend results. The IMAX opening also broke box office records, with 178 theaters generating approximately $9.5 million, 13% of the film's $73 million (at the time) domestic gross on less than 3% of the screens.

International markets generating opening weekend tallies of at least $10 million were Russia ($20.8 million), France ($20.3 million), the UK ($14.1 million), Germany ($13.2 million), Australia ($11.9 million), South Korea ($11.4 million) and Spain ($10.9 million). Avatar's worldwide gross was an estimated $232,180,000 after five days, the ninth largest opening-weekend gross of all time, and the largest for a non-franchise, non-sequel and original film. 58 international IMAX screens generated an estimated $4.1 million during the opening weekend.

The film's revenues decreased by a mere 1.8% in its second weekend in domestic markets, earning $75,617,183 to remain in first place at the box office. The film broke The Dark Knight 's record for the biggest second weekend of all time. The film experienced another small decrease in revenue in its third weekend, dropping 9.4% to $68,490,688 domestically, though remaining in first place at the box office. This broke Spider-Man 's long standing record of $45,036,912 as the highest grossing third weekend of all time. On the 19th day of the film's international release, it crossed the $1 billion mark worldwide, making it the fastest film ever to do so. The film also set records in its first week of release in China, with the highest opening week and single day grosses of all time. In the fourth weekend, Avatar continued its streak, leading the box office domestically for a fourth consecutive frame, setting a new all time fourth-weekend record of $50,306,217 (the previous record holder was James Cameron's own Titanic, at $28,716,310). In the film's fifth weekend, it set the Martin Luther King Day four-day weekend record, grossing an estimated $54,600,000. Its three-day take was an estimated $42,800,000, an all time fifth-weekend record (again taking the record from Titanic). Remaining in the number one spot in the domestic box office, Avatar became the first movie to spend the most weekends in first place since The Sixth Sense in 1999.

After 38 days of domestic release, Avatar has grossed over $551 million, and $1.2 billion in other territories after 40 days of international release, for a worldwide total of $1,839,741,499. This makes the film the second-highest-grossing of all time worldwide; It is also currently the second-highest-grossing film of all time in the United States and Canada. To date, Avatar has made 70% of its total worldwide gross in foreign markets, becoming just the second film to earn over $1 billion dollars in foreign gross alone. It became the highest-grossing film of all time in Australia, China, Russia, Spain, South Korea and Vietnam, the first film to gross over $100 million worldwide in specialized IMAX viewings, and surpassed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as the highest-grossing film released in Template:Fy in the United States. According to Box Office Mojo, Avatar is the 26th-highest-grossing film of all time domestically when adjusted for inflation.

Performance analysis

Before its release, various film critics and fan communities predicted the film would be a significant disappointment at the box office, much like had been thought of Cameron's previous film Titanic (though it later became the highest-grossing film of all time). This criticism ranged from Avatar's film budget, to its concept and use of 3-D "blue cat people". Slate magazine's Daniel Engber complimented the 3-D effects, but also criticized their character aspect for reminding him of certain CGI characters from the Star Wars prequel films and for having the "uncanny valley" effect.

"I think if everybody was embracing the film before the fact, the film could never live up to that expectation. Having that doubt, having it be controversial right now, having people arguing about it, I think is absolutely the healthy place. Have them go with some sense of wanting to find the answer. When they sit down in that movie theatre and the lights go down."

James Cameron on Avatar's criticism

Box office analysts' opinions differed from much of the Internet criticism about the film. Traditional analysts estimated that the film would be a box office success. "The holy grail of 3-D has finally arrived," said Jeff Bock, box-office analyst for Exhibitor Relations. "This is why all these 3-D venues were built: for Avatar. This is the one. The behemoth." The "cautionary estimate" was that Avatar would bring in around $60 million in its opening weekend. Bock felt that the number would fall between $80 million and 100 million, or more than that. Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere quoted a box-office seer who believed Avatar would make about $70 million on its opening weekend. Additionally, analysts believed the film's three-dimensionality would help its box office performance, given that recent 3-D films had been successful.

Cameron said he felt the pressure of the predictions, but that pressure is good for film-makers. "It makes us think about our audiences and what the audience wants," he stated. "We owe them a good time. We owe them a piece of good entertainment." Cameron did not want to preach to the audience, but rather "bring them in" and make sure they have a good time. Though he felt Avatar would appeal to everyone and that the film could not afford to have a target demographic, he especially wanted hard-core science-fiction fans to see it. "If I can just get 'em in the damn theater, the film will act on them in the way it's supposed to, in terms of taking them on an amazing journey and giving them this rich emotional experience," stated Cameron.

Regarding sentiment that Avatar would need repeat business to be a true success, Cameron agreed that sharing is a part of successful films. "When people have an experience that's very powerful in the movie theatre, they want to go share it. They want to grab their friend and bring them, so that they can enjoy it," he said. "They want to be the person to bring them the news that this is something worth having in their life. That's how Titanic worked."

Since the film's release and unusually strong box office performance, it has been debated as the one film capable of surpassing Titanic's worldwide gross, and its seemingly surreal strength perplexed box office analysts. "Most films are considered to be healthy if they manage anything less than a 50% drop from their first weekend to their second. Dipping just 11% from the first to the third is unheard of," relayed Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office analysis for Hollywood.com. "This is just unprecedented," he said. "I had to do a double take. I thought it was a miscalculation." Though other films in recent years have been cited as contenders for surpassing Titanic, most recently The Dark Knight, Avatar is considered the first film with a genuine chance at doing so, and its numbers being aided by higher ticket prices for 3D screenings failed to explain its thorough success to box office analysts. "What's also impressive is that Avatar made it through the holiday season in first place three consecutive weekends with a number of other highly competitive titles standing in its way," stated Dergarabedian. "Everyone stayed out of the way for Dark Knight. But nobody got out of the way for Avatar."

Dergarabedian and other analysts predicted that second place for the all-time box office gross would be guaranteed for the film, but that first would not be as certain. "...[I]t's a big, $800 million leap from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King to Titanic," Dergarabedian said. "Today's films flame out much faster than they did when Titanic was released." Brandon Gray, president of Box Office Mojo, believed in the film's chances of "certainly" surpassing Titanic, but said that it was too early to surmise because it had only played during the holidays. He said, "While Avatar may beat Titanic's revenue record, it will be tough, and the film is unlikely to surpass Titanic in attendance. Ticket prices were about $3 cheaper in the late 1990s." In December, Cameron had stated, "I don't think it's realistic to try to topple Titanic off its perch. Some pretty good movies have come out in the last few years. Titanic just struck some kind of chord."

Though analysts have been unable to pinpoint Avatar's success to one primary factor, explanations for the film's success have been given. Analysts state that January is historically "the dumping ground for the year's weakest films" and that this has also applied to 2010. Cameron himself said he decided to open the film in December so that it would not have much, if any, competition from there into January. Titanic capitalized on the same January predictability, and earned most of its gross in 1998. Additionally, Avatar established itself as a "must-see" event. Gray said, "...At this point, people who are going to see Avatar are going to see Avatar and would even if the slate was strong." Marketing the film as a "novelty factor" also helped. Fox positioned the film as a cinematic event, that if you want to see this film, you must see it in the theatres. "It's really hard to sell the idea that you can have the same experience at home," stated David Mumpower, an analyst at BoxOfficeProphets.com. The "Oscar buzz" surrounding the film and international viewings also helped. "Two-thirds of Titanic's haul was earned overseas, and Avatar is tracking similarly... Avatar opened in 106 markets globally and was No. 1 in all of them" and the markets "such as Russia, where Titanic saw modest receipts in 1997 and 1998, are white-hot today" with "more screens and moviegoers" than before. Films in 3-D accumulated $1.3 billion in 2009, according to Variety, "a threefold increase over 2008 and more than 10 percent of the total 2009 box-office gross". The increased ticket price—an average of $2 to $3 per ticket in most markets— has helped the film. Likewise, Entertainment Weekly attributed the film's success to 3-D glasses, but also to its "astronomic word-of-mouth". Not only do some theaters charge up to $18.50 for IMAX tickets, but "the buzz" created by the new technology is the possible cause for sold-out screenings.

Analysts state that the various explanations cannot take away from Avatar's box office performance. "What makes Avatar remarkable is that it has no basis in previously established material. The movie might be derivative of many movies in its story and themes," said Gray, "but it had no direct antecedent like the other top-grossing films: Titanic (historical events), the Star Wars movies (an established film franchise), or The Lord of the Rings (literature). It was a tougher sell, which makes its achievement more impressive." Cameron, who had stated that the film was unlikely to surpass Titanic, gave a different take on the matter in a January 2010 interview once Avatar's performance was easier to predict. "It's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time," he said.

Critical reception

The film received generally positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 82% of 248 professional critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.4 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 94%, based on a sample of 35 reviews. The site's general consensus is that "It might be more impressive on a technical level than as a piece of storytelling, but Avatar reaffirms James Cameron's singular gift for imaginative, absorbing filmmaking." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 84 based on 35 reviews.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "extraordinary" and gave it four stars out of four. "Watching Avatar, I felt sort of the same as when I saw Star Wars in 1977," he said. Like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, the film "employs a new generation of special effects". A. O. Scott of At The Movies also compared viewing the film to the first time he viewed Star Wars. He said "the script is a little bit ... obvious" but that "is part of what made it work". Todd McCarthy of Variety praised the film. "The King of the World sets his sights on creating another world entirely in Avatar, and it's very much a place worth visiting." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review. "The screen is alive with more action and the soundtrack pops with more robust music than any dozen sci-fi shoot-'em-ups you care to mention," he stated. Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers praised the film, giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars and in his print review wrote, "It extends the possibilities of what movies can do. Cameron's talent may just be as big as his dreams." Richard Corliss of Time magazine stated, "Embrace the movie — surely the most vivid and convincing creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving pictures." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times felt the film has "powerful" visual accomplishments but "flat dialogue" and "obvious characterization". James Berardinelli, film critic for ReelViews, praised the film and its story, giving it 4 out of 4 stars he wrote, "In 3D, it's immersive – but the traditional film elements – story, character, editing, theme, emotional resonance, etc. – are presented with sufficient expertise to make even the 2D version an engrossing 2 1/2-hour experience."

Avatar's underlying social and political themes attracted attention. Armond White of the New York Press wrote that Cameron used villainous American characters to misrepresent facets of militarism, capitalism, and imperialism. Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president, praised the film for its "profound show of resistance to capitalism and the struggle for the defense of nature". Russell D. Moore in The Christian Post concluded that propaganda exists in the film and stated, "If you can get a theater full of people in Kentucky to stand and applaud the defeat of their country in war, then you've got some amazing special effects." Adam Cohen of The New York Times was more positive, calling the film's anti-imperialist message "a 22nd-century version of the American colonists vs. the British, India vs. the Raj, or Latin America vs. United Fruit". Ross Douthat of The New York Times opined that the film is "Cameron's long apologia for pantheism" which "has been Hollywood's religion of choice for a generation now". Annalee Newitz of io9 concluded that Avatar is another film that has the recurring "fantasy about race" where "some white guy" becomes the "most awesome" member of a non-white culture.

Some critics noted plot similarities with other films, literature or media. Ty Burr of the Boston Globe called it "the same movie" as Dances with Wolves. Parallels to the concept and use of an avatar were in Poul Anderson's 1957 short story Call Me Joe, where a paralyzed man uses his mind remotely to control an alien body. Other reviews have compared it to the films FernGully: The Last Rainforest and Pocahontas. NPR's Morning Edition has compared the film to a montage of tropes, with one friend of an editor stating that Avatar was made by mixing a bunch of film scripts in a blender. In a similar vein, columnist David Brooks, writing in The New York Times, describes the story as "oft-repeated". In this trope, he stated, "a manly young adventurer ... goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit" but finds the native people of the wilderness "noble and spiritual and pure. And so ... emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization". Cameron acknowledged that the film is thematically similar to such classic "going-native" films as Dances with Wolves and At Play in the Fields of the Lord. The various interpretations of the film led Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune to label it the "season's Rorschach blot".

The movie blog /Film accumulated a list of quotes about Avatar from fourteen writers and directors in Hollywood. From Steven Spielberg, "The most evocative and amazing science-fiction movie since Star Wars." Frank Marshall wrote, "Avatar is audacious and awe inspiring. It's truly extraordinary." Richard Kelly called the film "amazing". John August termed it a "master class". Michael Moore recommended, "Go see Avatar, a brilliant movie [for] our times." The only negative reaction in the list was from Duncan Jones, "It's not in my top three Jim Cameron films. ... at what point in the film did you have any doubt what was going to happen next?"

Awards and honors

See also: List of awards and honors received by Avatar

The New York Film Critics Online have honored the film with its Best Picture award. The film also received nine nominations for the Critics' Choice Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, winning in the "Best Action Film" and several technical categories. St. Louis Film Critics have nominated the film for two of its annual awards—Best Visual Effects and Most Original, Innovative or Creative Film, and the film won both awards. The film was a runner-up for the best Production Design award of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association annual awards. The film also picked up four nominations for the 67th Golden Globe Awards, winning for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director. The film has also been nominated by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for total of eight nominations, including: "Best Film", "Director", "Music", "Cinematography", "Editing", "Production Design", "Sound" and "Special Visual Effects".

The Austin Film Critics Association and the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association have placed the film on their top ten films of the year lists, while Chicago Film Critics Association has nominated the film for its annual Best Cinematography and Best Original Score awards. The Las Vegas Film Critics Society has awarded the film with Best Art Direction award, and the Florida Film Critics Circle honored the film with Best Cinematography award. London Film Critics' Circle has nominated the film for its Film of the Year and Director of the Year annual awards. Phoenix Film Critics Society has honored the film with Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design and Best Visual Effect awards and also included it on its top-ten films of the year list. The Online Film Critics Society has nominated the film for Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Editing awards. The film was also nominated by the Producers Guild of America for its Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures. James Cameron has been named as one of the 2009 Nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film awarded by the Directors Guild of America. Avatar was also nominated for the Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Feature Film by the Cinema Audio Society. In December 2009, the American Film Institute recognized the film and Cameron's advances in CGI effects with their yearly "AFI Moments of Significance" award claiming it "will have profound effects on the future of the art form."

The film is considered to be a front-runner for Best Picture at the 82nd Academy Awards due to its strong box-office and critical reception, and reportedly successful screening held for Academy members.

In January 2010, the China Daily reported that the "Southern Sky Column", a mountain in Zhangjiajie, which is located in the northwestern part of Hunan province, had been renamed "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain" in honor of the film. According to production designer Dylan Cole, the "Hallelujah Mountains" seen in the film were inspired by Mount Huang (also known as Huangshan) and the mountains of the Hunan province, among others around the world. Director Cameron had noted the influence of the Chinese peaks on the design of the fictional floating rocks, saying at a December 2009 press conference in Beijing, "all we had to do was simply recreate Huangshan Mountain in outer space."

Future

In 2006, Cameron stated that if Avatar were successful, he hoped to make two sequels to the film. In response to the film's financial success, Cameron confirmed the possibility of making sequels.

Cameron has stated that the story arc developed for Avatar is large enough to cover future film installments, something which he had planned from the start, going so far as to include certain scenes in the film because they led to the sequel. The first sequel would take place after the events of the first film, and would continue to follow the characters of Jake and Neytiri. Sam Worthington has signed on to reprise his role as Jake Sully in future sequels, and Stephen Lang, who played Colonel Miles Quaritch, believes his character could make a return: "You think those two arrows in my chest are going to stop me from coming back?" Lang told Entertainment Weekly, "Nothing's over so long as they've got my DNA."

External links

• Official website
• Official Shooting Script
• Official AVTR program website
• Pandorapedia an official wiki
• Avatar at IMDb
• Avatar at AllMovie
• Avatar at Rotten Tomatoes
• Avatar at Metacritic
• Avatar at Box Office Mojo