name	Avatar
alt	On the upper half of the poster are the faces of a man and a female blue alien with yellow eyes, with a giant planet and a moon in the background and the text at the top: "From the director of Terminator 2 and Titanic". Below is a dragon-like animal flying across a landscape with floating mountains at sunset; helicopter-like aircraft are seen in the distant background. The title "James Cameron's Avatar", film credits and the release date appear at the bottom.
director	James Cameron
producer
writer	James Cameron
starring
music	James Horner
cinematography	Mauro Fiore
editing
studio
distributor	20th Century Fox
released
runtime	162 minutes 171 minutes (re-release)
country
language	English
budget	$237 million }}

''Avatar'' is a 2009 American epic science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel David Moore, Giovanni Ribisi and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are mining a precious mineral called unobtanium on Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system. but according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film. Work on the language of the film's extraterrestrial beings began in summer 2005, and Cameron began developing the screenplay and fictional universe in early 2006. ''Avatar'' was officially budgeted at $237 million. The film made extensive use of cutting edge motion capture filming techniques, and was released for traditional viewing, 3-D viewing (using the RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, XpanD 3D, and IMAX 3D formats), and for "4-D" experiences in select South Korean theaters. The stereoscopic filmmaking was touted as a breakthrough in cinematic technology.

''Avatar'' premiered in London on , 2009, and was internationally released on and in the United States and Canada on , to critical acclaim and commercial success. The film broke several box office records during its release and became the highest-grossing film of all time in North America and worldwide, surpassing ''Titanic'', which had held the records for the previous twelve years. It also became the first film to gross more than . ''Avatar'' was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won three, for Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction. The film's home release went on to break opening sales records and became the top-selling Blu-ray of all time. Following the film's success, Cameron signed with 20th Century Fox to produce two sequels, making ''Avatar'' the first of a planned trilogy.

Plot

By 2148, humans have severely depleted Earth's natural resources. In 2154, the RDA Corporation mines for a valuable mineral—unobtanium—on Pandora, a densely forested habitable moon of the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri star system. Pandora, whose atmosphere is poisonous to humans, is inhabited by the Na'vi, -tall, blue-skinned, sapient humanoids who live in harmony with nature and worship a mother goddess called Eywa.

To explore Pandora's biosphere, scientists use Na'vi-human hybrids called "avatars", operated by genetically matched humans; Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic former marine, replaces his deceased twin brother as an operator of one. Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), head of the Avatar Program, considers Sully an inadequate replacement and assigns him as a bodyguard. While protecting the avatars of Grace and scientist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) as they collect biological data, Jake's avatar is attacked by a thanator and flees into the forest, where he is rescued by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a female Na'vi. Upon sight of an auspicious portent, she takes him to her clan, whereupon Neytiri's mother Mo'at (C. C. H. Pounder), the clan's spiritual leader, orders her daughter to initiate Jake into their society.

Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), head of RDA's private security force, promises Jake that the company will restore his legs if he gathers intelligence about the Na'vi, on grounds that they occupy the richest deposit of unobtanium in the area. When Grace learns of this, she transfers herself, Jake, and Norm to an outpost. Over three months, Jake grows to sympathize with the natives. After Jake is initiated into the tribe, he and Neytiri choose each other as mates; and soon afterward, Jake reveals his change of allegiance when he attempts to disable a bulldozer that threatens to destroy a sacred Na'vi site. When Quaritch shows a videograph of Jake's attack on the bulldozer to Administrator Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), and another in which Jake admits that the Na'vi will never abandon Hometree, Selfridge orders Hometree destroyed.

Despite Grace's argument that destroying Hometree could damage the biological neural network native to Pandora, Selfridge orders Jake and Grace to convince the Na'vi to evacuate. When this fails, Quaritch's forces destroy Hometree, killing Neytiri's father and many others. Mo'at frees Jake and Grace after the two were taken captive by the Na'vi following Jake's confession to being a spy; but they are detached from their avatars and imprisoned. Pilot Trudy Chacón (Michelle Rodriguez), disgusted by Quaritch's brutality, carries them to Grace's outpost; but during the escape, Quaritch injures Grace.

To regain the Na'vi's trust, Jake connects his mind to that of Toruk, a dragon-like predator feared and honoured in Na'vi history. Thus connected, Jake finds the refugees at the sacred Tree of Souls and pleads with Mo'at to heal Grace. The clan attempts to transfer Grace from her human body into her avatar with the aid of the Tree; but she succumbs to her injuries before the process can complete.

Supported by the new chief Tsu'tey (Laz Alonso), who acts as Jake's translator, Jake speaks to unite the clan and tells them to gather other clans for battle against the RDA. On the eve of battle, Jake prays to Eywa, via a neural connection to the Tree of Souls, to intercede on behalf of the Na'vi. Having noticed this convention, Quaritch organizes a pre-emptive strike against the Tree of Souls, believing that its destruction will demoralize the natives.

During the subsequent battle, the Na'vi suffer heavy casualties, including Tsu'tey and Trudy; but are rescued when Pandoran wildlife unexpectedly join the attack and overwhelm the humans, which Neytiri interprets as Eywa's answer to Jake's prayer. Jake destroys a makeshift bomber before it can reach the Tree of Souls; whereupon Quaritch dons an AMP suit and breaches the avatar link unit containing Jake's human body, exposing Jake to Pandora's poisonous atmosphere. Quaritch then prepares to slit the throat of Jake's avatar, but Neytiri kills Quaritch and saves Jake from suffocation.

With the exceptions of Jake, Norm, Max and several other scientists, all humans are expelled from Pandora and sent back to Earth; whereafter Jake is transferred entirely into his avatar with the aid of the Tree.

Cast

;Humans Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, the film's main protagonist. Sully is a disabled former Marine who becomes part of the Avatar Program after his twin brother is killed. His military background helps the Na'vi warriors relate to him. Cameron cast the Australian actor after a worldwide search 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 would give the character "a quality that is really real". Cameron said 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". Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch. Quaritch is the head of the mining operation's security detail. Fiercely loyal to his military code, he has a profound disregard for Pandora's inhabitants that is evident in both his actions and his language. He serves as the film's main 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 3-D footage with Cameron, but was ultimately not cast in the role. Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine. Augustine is an exobiologist and head of the Avatar Program. She mentors Sully and is an advocate of peaceful relations with the Na'vi, having set up a school to teach them English. Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacón. Chacón is a combat pilot assigned to support the Avatar Program who is sympathetic to the Na'vi. Cameron had wanted to work with Rodriguez since seeing her in ''Girlfight''. Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge. Selfridge is the corporate administrator for the RDA mining operation. While he is at first willing to destroy the Na'vi civilization to preserve the company's bottom line, he is reluctant to authorize the attacks on the Na'vi, doing so only after Quaritch persuades him that it is necessary, and the attacks will be humane. When the attacks are broadcast to the base, Selfridge displays discomfort at the violence. Joel David Moore as Dr. Norm Spellman. Spellman is a xenoanthropologist who studies plant and animal life as part of the Avatar Program. He arrives on Pandora at the same time as 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 better suited to win the natives' respect. Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel, a scientist who works in the Avatar Program and comes to support Jake's rebellion against the RDA.

;Na'vi Zoe Saldana as Neytiri, the daughter of the leader of the Omaticaya, the Na'vi clan central to the story. She is attracted to Jake because of his bravery, though frustrated with him for what she sees as his naiveté and stupidity. She serves as both the film's main Na'vi protagonist and Jake's love interest. 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 Eytukan.

Wes Studi as Eytukan, the Omaticaya's clan leader, Neytiri's father, and Mo'at's mate.

Laz Alonso as Tsu'tey, the finest warrior of the Omaticaya. He is heir to the chieftainship of the tribe, and at the beginning of the film's story he is betrothed to Neytiri.

Production

Origins

In 1994, director James Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for ''Avatar'', drawing inspiration from "every single science fiction book" he had read in his childhood as well as from adventure novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard. In , 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. It was 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 .

In February 2006, Cameron revealed that his film ''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 his project ''Battle Angel'' after completing a five-day camera test in the previous year.

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 University of California, 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.

From 2005 to 2007, Cameron worked with a handful of designers, including famed fantasy illustrator Wayne Barlowe and renowned concept artist Jordu Schell, to shape the design of the Na'vi with paintings and physical sculptures when Cameron felt that 3-D brush renderings were not capturing his vision, often working together in the kitchen of Cameron's Malibu home. In , Cameron announced that he would film ''Avatar'' for a mid 2008 release and planned to begin principal photography with an established cast by . 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. 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. In , 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.

Fox was wavering because of its painful experience with cost overruns and delays on Cameron's previous 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 Walt Disney Studios). However, when Disney attempted to take over, Fox exercised its right of first refusal. In , 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 accepted ''Avatar'', one skeptical Fox executive shook his head and told Cameron and Landau, "I don't know if we're crazier for letting you do this, or if you're crazier for thinking you ''can'' do this ..."

{{external media | topic = James Cameron interviewed by F. X. Feeney on writing Avatar. | audio1 = Interview, from here }} 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 press release described the film as "an emotional journey of redemption and revolution" and said the story is 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". The story would be of an entire world complete with an ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and 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. A studio spokesperson, said that the budget "is $237 million, with $150 million for promotion, end of story".

Themes and inspirations

''Avatar'' is primarily an action-adventure journey of self-discovery, in the context of imperialism and deep ecology. 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's ''John Carter'' series. The director has acknowledged that ''Avatar'' shares themes with the films ''At Play in the Fields of the Lord'', ''The Emerald Forest'', and ''Princess Mononoke'', which feature clashes between cultures and civilizations, and 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 blue-skinned woman 12 feet () tall, which he thought was "kind of a cool image". Also he said, "I just like blue. It's a good color ... plus, there's a connection to the Hindu deities, which I like conceptually." 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. The Na'vi were based on them.

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. He felt that whether or not the Jake and Neytiri love story would be perceived as believable partially hinged on the physical attractiveness of Neytiri's alien appearance, which was developed by considering her appeal to the all-male crew of artists. Though Cameron felt Jake and Neytiri do not fall in love right away, their portrayers (Worthington and Saldana) felt the characters do. Cameron said the two actors "had a great chemistry" during filming.

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." According to production designer Dylan Cole, the fictional floating rocks were inspired by Mount Huang (also known as Huangshan), Guilin, Zhangjiajie, among others around the world. Director Cameron had noted the influence of the Chinese peaks on the design of the floating mountains.

To create the interiors of the human mining colony on Pandora, production designers visited the ''Noble Clyde Boudreaux'' oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico during . They photographed, measured and filmed every aspect of the platform, which was later replicated on-screen with photorealistic CGI during post-production.

Cameron said that he wanted to make "something that has this spoonful of sugar of all the action and the adventure and all that" 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".

Cameron acknowledges that ''Avatar'' implicitly criticizes the United States' role in the Iraq War and the impersonal nature of mechanized warfare in general. In reference to the use of the term ''shock and awe'' in the film, Cameron said, "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." and, "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. Asked about the scene's resemblance to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Cameron said he had been "surprised at how much it did look like ".

Filming

Principal photography for ''Avatar'' began in in Los Angeles and Wellington, 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 , 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 lasted 31 days at the Hughes Aircraft stage in Playa Vista in Los Angeles. Live action photography began in at Stone Street Studios in Wellington, New Zealand, and was scheduled to last 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, firearm use, and hand-to-hand combat. They 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 Hawaiian tropical rainforests to get a feel for a rainforest setting before shooting on the soundstage.

During filming, Cameron made use of his virtual camera system, a new way of directing motion-capture filmmaking. The system is showing the actors' virtual counterparts in 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 said this process does not diminish the value or importance of acting. On the contrary, because there is no need for repeated camera and lighting setups, costume fittings and make-up touch-ups, scenes do not need to be interrupted repeatedly. 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 said, "I like to think of it as digital makeup, not augmented animation ... Motion capture brings the director back to a kind of intimacy that actors and directors only know when they're working in live theater." Spielberg and George Lucas were also able to visit the set to watch Cameron direct with the equipment.

To film the shots where CGI interacts with live action, a unique camera referred to as a "simulcam" was used, a merger of the 3-D fusion camera and the virtual camera systems. While filming live action in real time with the simulcam, the CGI images captured with the virtual camera or designed from scratch, are superimposed over the live action images as in augmented reality and shown on a small monitor, making it possible for the director to instruct the actors how to relate to the virtual material in the scene.

Visual effects

A number of innovative 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 .

Innovations include a new system for lighting massive areas like Pandora's jungle, a motion-capture stage or "volume" six times larger than any previously used, and an improved method of capturing facial expressions, enabling full performance capture. To achieve the face capturing, 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. Besides the performance capture data which were transferred directly to the computers, numerous reference cameras gave the digital artists multiple angles of each performance. A technically challenging scene was near the end of the film when the computer-generated Neytiri held the live action Jake in human form, and attention was given to the details of the shadows and reflected light between them.

The lead visual effects company was Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand, at one point employing 900 people to work on the film. Because of the huge amount of data which needed to be stored, cataloged and available for everybody involved, even on the other side of the world, a new cloud computing and Digital Asset Management (DAM) system named Gaia was created by Microsoft especially for ''Avatar'', which allowed the crews to keep track of and coordinate all stages in the digital processing. To render ''Avatar'', Weta used a server farm making use of 4,000 Hewlett-Packard servers with 35,000 processor cores running Ubuntu Linux and the Grid Engine cluster manager. The render farm occupies the 193rd to 197th spots in the TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. A new texturing and paint software system called Mari, was developed by The Foundry in cooperation with Weta. Creating the Na'vi characters and the virtual world of Pandora required over a petabyte of digital storage, and each minute of the final footage for ''Avatar'' occupies 17.28 gigabytes of storage. To help finish preparing the special effects sequences on time, a number of other companies were brought on board, including Industrial Light & Magic, which worked alongside Weta Digital to create the battle sequences. ILM was responsible for the visual effects for many of the film's specialized vehicles and devised a new way to make CGI explosions. Joe Letteri was the film's visual effects general supervisor.

Music and soundtrack

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 . 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. During production, Horner promised Cameron that he would not work on any other project except for ''Avatar'' and reportedly worked on the score from four in the morning till ten at night throughout the process. He stated in an interview, "''Avatar'' has been the most difficult film I have worked on and the biggest job I have undertaken." 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 , 2009, on MySpace.

Marketing

Promotions

The first photo of the film was released on , 2009, and ''Empire'' magazine released exclusive images from the film in its October issue. 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 . 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 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 , 2009. The new 210-second trailer was premiered in theatres on , 2009, then soon after premiered online on Yahoo! on , 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 first place of all trailers viewed on Apple.com with 4 million views. On October 30, to celebrate the opening of the first 3-D 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 , 2009, during a Dallas Cowboys football game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on the Diamond Vision screen, one of the world's largest video displays, 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 3-D 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 the American release, Zoe Saldana promoted the film on Adult Swim when she was interviewed by an animated Space Ghost.

McDonald's had a promotion mentioned in television commercials in Europe called "Avatarize yourself", which encouraged people to go to the website set up by Oddcast, and use a photograph of themselves to change into a Na'vi.

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 , 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 , 2009, by Abrams Books. The book features detailed production artwork from the film, including production sketches, illustrations by Lisa Fitzpatrick, and film stills. Producer Jon Landau wrote the foreword, Cameron wrote the epilogue, and director Peter Jackson wrote the preface. In , Abrams Books also released ''The Making of Avatar'', a 272-page book that detailed the film's production process and contains over 500 color photographs and illustrations.

In a 2009 interview, Cameron said that he planned to write a novel version of ''Avatar'' after the film was released. In , producer Jon Landau stated that Cameron plans a prequel novel for ''Avatar'' that will "lead up to telling the story of the movie, but it would go into much more depth about all the stories that we didn't have time to deal with", saying that "Jim wants to write a novel that is a big, epic story that fills in a lot of things".

Video games

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 , 2009, for most home video game consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, iPhone), Microsoft Windows and for PSP.

Action figures and postage stamps

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 3-D 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 were also distributed in McDonald's Happy Meals in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, the United States and Venezuela.

In December 2009, France Post released a special limited edition stamp based on ''Avatar'', coinciding with the film's worldwide release.

Release

Initial screening

''Avatar'' premiered in London on , 2009, and was released theatrically worldwide from to 18. The film was originally set for release on , 2009, during filming, but was pushed back to allow more post-production time (the last shots were delivered in November), and to 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. However, a 3-D 2.39:1 extract was approved for use with constant-image-height screens (i.e. screens which increase in width to display 2.39:1 films). During a 3-D preview showing in Germany on , the movie's DRM 'protection' system failed, and some copies delivered could not be watched at all the theaters. The problems were fixed in time for the public premiere, however. ''Avatar'' was released in a total of 3,457 theatres in the US, of which 2,032 theatres ran 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 3D format, opening in 178 theaters in the United States on . The international IMAX release included 58 theaters beginning on , 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. In summer 2009, 20th Century Fox Korea adapted and later released ''Avatar'' in 4-D version, which included "moving seats, smells of explosives, sprinkling water, laser lights and wind".

Box office

General

''Avatar'' released internationally in more than 14,000 screens. ''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 $26,752,099 on its opening day, and $77,025,481 over its opening weekend, making it the second largest December opening ever behind ''I Am Legend'', the largest domestic opening weekend for a film not based on a franchise (topping ''The Incredibles''), the highest opening weekend for a film entirely in 3-D (breaking ''Up''s record), the highest opening weekend for an environmentalist film (breaking ''The Day After Tomorrow''s record), 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 ($19.7 million), France ($17.4 million), the UK ($13.8 million), Germany ($13.3 million), South Korea ($11.7 million), Australia ($11.5 million) and Spain ($11.0 million). ''Avatar'''s worldwide gross was US$241.6 million 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.

Revenues in the film's second weekend decreased by only 1.8% in domestic markets, marking a rare occurrence, earning $75,617,183, to remain in first place at the box office and recording the biggest second weekend of all time. The film experienced another marginal decrease in revenue in its third weekend, dropping 9.4% to $68,490,688 domestically, remaining in first place at the box office, to set a third-weekend record. 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 and also making it the highest-grossing release of 2009 worldwide. In its fourth weekend, ''Avatar'' continued to lead the box office domestically, setting a new all-time fourth-weekend record of $50,306,217, and becoming the highest-grossing 2009 release in the United States. In the film's fifth weekend, it set the Martin Luther King Day four-day weekend record, grossing $54,401,446, and set a fifth-weekend record with a take of $42,785,612. It held to the top spot to set the sixth and seventh weekend records earning $34,944,081 and $31,280,029 respectively. On it became the first film to earn over , and on , after 72 days of domestic release, it became the first film to gross over . However, after inflation adjustment, the movie falls to fourteenth on the all-time box office list. It remained in the number one spot at the domestic box office for seven consecutive weeks—the most consecutive No. 1 weekends since ''Titanic'' spent 15 weekends at No. 1 in 1997–'98—and also spent 11 consecutive weekends at the top of the box office outside the United States and Canada, breaking the record of 9 consecutive weekends set by ''Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest''. By the end of its first theatrical release ''Avatar'' had grossed $749,766,139 in the U.S. and Canada, and $ in other territories, for a worldwide total of $.

Including the revenue from a re-release of ''Avatar'' featuring extended footage, ''Avatar'' grossed $760,507,625 in the U.S. and Canada, and $2,021,767,547 in other territories for a worldwide total of $2,782,275,172 with 72.7% of its total worldwide gross in international markets. ''Avatar'' has set a number of box office records during its release: on , 2010, it surpassed ''Titanic'''s worldwide gross to become the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide 41 days after its international release, just two days after taking the foreign box office record, and on , 47 days after its domestic release, ''Avatar'' surpassed ''Titanic'' to become the highest-grossing film of all time in Canada and the United States. It became the highest-grossing film of all time in at least 30 other countries and is the first film to earn over $2 billion in foreign box office receipts. IMAX ticket sales account for $228 million of its worldwide gross, more than double the previous record.

Box Office Mojo estimates that after adjusting for the rise in average ticket prices, ''Avatar'' would be the 14th-highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. and Canada. Box Office Mojo also observes that the higher ticket prices for 3-D and IMAX screenings have had a significant impact on ''Avatar's'' gross; it estimated, on , 2010, that ''Avatar'' had sold approximately tickets in North American theatres, more than any other film since 1999's ''Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace''. On a worldwide basis, ''Avatar'' ranks third after adjusting for inflation, behind ''Gone with the Wind'' and ''Titanic'', although some reports place it ahead of ''Titanic''.

Commercial analysis

Before its release, various film critics and fan communities predicted the film would be a significant disappointment at the box office, in line with predictions made for Cameron's previous blockbuster ''Titanic''. 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 criticized them for reminding him of certain CGI characters from the ''Star Wars'' prequel films and for having the "uncanny valley" effect. ''The New York Times'' noted that 20th Century Fox executives had decided to release ''Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel'' alongside ''Avatar'', calling it a "secret weapon" to cover any unforeseeable losses at the box-office. Box office analysts, on the other hand, estimated that the film would be a box office success. "The holy grail of 3-D has finally arrived," said an 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. Others guessed higher. Some 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." Although 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." Cameron was aware of the sentiment that ''Avatar'' would need significant "repeat business" just to make up for its budget and achieve box office success, and believed ''Avatar'' could inspire the same "sharing" reaction as ''Titanic''. He said that the film worked because, "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. They want to be the person to bring them the news that this is something worth having in their life."

After the film's release and unusually strong box office performance over its first two weeks, it was debated as the one film capable of surpassing ''Titanic'''s worldwide gross, and its continued strength perplexed box office analysts. Other films in recent years had been cited as contenders for surpassing ''Titanic'', such as 2008's ''The Dark Knight'', but ''Avatar'' was considered the first film with a genuine chance to do so, and its numbers being aided by higher ticket prices for 3-D screenings did not fully explain its success to 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." Analysts predicted second place for the film's worldwide gross, but most were uncertain about it surpassing ''Titanic'' because "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 becoming the highest-grossing film of all time, though he also believed 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." Cameron said he did not think it was realistic to "try to topple ''Titanic'' off its perch" because it "just struck some kind of chord" and there had been other good films in recent years. He changed his prediction by mid-January. "It's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time," he said. }} Though analysts have been unable to agree that ''Avatar'''s success is attributable to one primary factor, several explanations have been advanced. First, January is historically "the dumping ground for the year's weakest films", and this also applied to 2010. Cameron himself said he decided to open the film in December so that it would have less competition from then to 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 should be seen 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 helped. "Two-thirds of ''Titanic's'' haul was earned overseas, and ''Avatar'' [tracked] 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% of the total 2009 box-office gross". The increased ticket price – an average of $2 to $3 per ticket in most markets – 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 was the possible cause for sold-out screenings. Gray said ''Avatar'' having no basis in previously established material makes its performance remarkable and even more impressive. "The movie might be derivative of many movies in its story and themes," he said, "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 ..."

Critical reception

:''See also: Themes in Avatar for more reviews'' The film was well received by film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% of 275 professional critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.4 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' top critics, who are popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 95%, based on a total of 39 reviews. The site's 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." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 84% based on 35 reviews. CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend revealed the average grade cinemagoers gave ''Avatar'' was A on an A+ to F scale. Every demographic surveyed was reported to give this rating. These polls also indicated that the main draw of the film was its use of 3-D.

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. "Avatar" is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It's a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message". A. O. Scott of ''At The Movies'' also compared his viewing of the film to the first time he viewed ''Star Wars'', and added that although "the script is a little bit ... obvious," it was "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 awarded ''Avatar'' three and a half out of four stars and wrote in his print review, "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 thought that the film was, "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 four out of four stars he wrote, "In 3-D, it's immersive—but the traditional film elements—story, character, editing, theme, emotional resonance, etc.—are presented with sufficient expertise to make even the 2-D version an engrossing 2½-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." Some commentators sympathetic to anarcho-primitivism have even praised the film as a manifesto for their cause. Adam Cohen of ''The New York Times'' was more positive about the film, calling its 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 ... Hollywood's religion of choice for a generation now", while Saritha Prabhu of ''The Tennessean'' called the film a misportrayal of pantheism and Eastern spirituality in general, and Maxim Osipov of ''The Hindustan Times'', on the contrary, commended the film's message for its overall consistency with the teachings of Hinduism in the Bhagavad Gita. Annalee Newitz of io9 concluded that ''Avatar'' is another film that has the recurring "fantasy about race" whereby "some white guy" becomes the "most awesome" member of a non-white culture. Michael Phillips of the ''Chicago Tribune'' called ''Avatar'' "the season's ideological Rorschach blot", while Miranda Devine of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' felt that, "It is impossible to watch Avatar without being banged over the head with the director's ideological hammer."

Critics and audiences have cited similarities with other films, literature or media, with several accounts concluding the matter as simple "borrowing" and others claiming outright plagiarism. Ty Burr of the ''Boston Globe'' called it "the same movie" as ''Dances with Wolves''. Parallels to the concept and use of an avatar are in Poul Anderson's 1957 short story ''Call Me Joe'', in which a paralyzed man uses his mind remotely to control an alien body. Cinema audiences in Russia have noted that ''Avatar'' has elements in common with the 1960s ''Noon Universe'' novels by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, which are set in the 22nd century on a forested world called Pandora with a sentient indigenous species called the Nave. Various reviews have compared ''Avatar'' to the films ''FernGully: The Last Rainforest'', ''Pocahontas'' and ''The Last Samurai.'' NPR's ''Morning Edition'' has compared the film to a montage of tropes, with one commentator stating that ''Avatar'' was made by mixing a bunch of film scripts in a blender. Some sources noted similarities to the artwork of Roger Dean, which featured fantastic images of floating rock formations and dragons. Similarities have been found between ''Avatar'' and Ursula Le Guin's novel ''The Word for World is Forest'', with Gary Westfahl writing for Locus Online that "... the science fiction story that most closely resembles Avatar has to be Ursula K. Le Guin's novella "The Word for World Is Forest" (1972), another epic about a benevolent race of alien beings who happily inhabit dense forests while living in harmony with nature until they are attacked and slaughtered by invading human soldiers who believe that the only good gook is a dead gook."

''Avatar'' received compliments from filmmakers, with Steven Spielberg praising it as "the most evocative and amazing science-fiction movie since ''Star Wars''" and others calling it "audacious and awe inspiring", "master class", and "brilliant". On the other hand, Duncan Jones said: "It's not in my top three James Cameron films. ... [A]t what point in the film did you have any doubt what was going to happen next?". ''Time'' ranked ''Avatar'' number 10 in their list of "Best Movies of the Decade" and IGN listed ''Avatar'' as number 22 on their list of the top 25 Sci-Fi movies of all time.

Accolades

''Avatar'' won the 2009 Academy Awards for Art Direction, Cinematography, and Visual Effects, and was nominated for a total of nine, including Best Picture and Best Director. The New York Film Critics Online honored the film with its Best Picture award. The film also won the Critics' Choice Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Action Film and several technical categories, out of nine nominations. It won two of the St. Louis Film Critics awards: Best Visual Effects and Most Original, Innovative or Creative Film. ''Avatar'' also won the 67th Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director, and was nominated for two others. The film also won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for Production Design and Special Visual Effects, and was nominated for seven others, including Best Film and Director. The film has received various other awards, nominations and honors.

Extended theatrical re-release

In July 2010, Cameron confirmed that there would be an extended theatrical re-release of the film on , 2010, exclusively in 3-D theaters and IMAX 3D. ''Avatar: Special Edition'' includes an additional nine minutes of footage, all of which is CG, including an extension of the sex scene and various other scenes that were cut from the original theatrical film. This extended re-release resulted in the film's run time approaching the current IMAX platter maximum of 170 minutes, thereby leaving less time for the end credits. Cameron stated that the nine minutes of added scenes cost more than a minute to produce and finish. During its 12-week re-release, ''Avatar: Special Edition'' grossed an additional $10.74 million in North America and $22.46 million overseas for a worldwide total of $33.2 million.

Home media

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray in the US on , 2010 and in the UK on . The US release was not on a Tuesday as is the norm, but was done to coincide with Earth Day. The first DVD and Blu-ray release does not contain any supplemental features other than the theatrical film and the disc menu in favor of and to make space for optimal picture and sound. The release also preserves the film's native 1.78:1 (16:9) format as Cameron felt that was the best format to watch the film. The Blu-ray disc contains DRM (BD+ 5) which some Blu-ray players might not support without a firmware update.

''Avatar'' set a first-day launch record in the U.S. for Blu-ray sales at 1.5 million units sold, breaking the record previously held by ''The Dark Knight'' (600,000 units sold). First-day DVD and Blu-ray sales combined were over 4 million units sold. In its first four days of release, sales of ''Avatar'' on Blu-ray reached 2.7 million in the United States and Canada – overtaking ''The Dark Knight'' to become the best ever selling Blu-ray release in the region. The release later broke the Blu-ray sales record in the UK the following week. In its first three weeks of release, the film sold a total of DVD and Blu-ray discs combined, a new record for sales in that period. As of , 2011, DVD sales (not including Blu-ray) totaled over units sold with in revenue.

The ''Avatar'' Three-Disc Extended Collector's Edition on DVD and Blu-ray was released on , 2010. Three different versions of the film are present on the discs: the original theatrical cut, the special edition cut, and a collector's extended cut (with the DVD set spreading them on two discs, but the Blu-ray set presenting them on a single disc). The collector's extended cut contains 6 more minutes of footage, thus making it 16 minutes longer than the original theatrical cut. Cameron mentioned, "you can sit down, and in a continuous screening of the film, watch it with the Earth opening". He stated the "Earth opening" is an additional 4 1/2 minutes of scenes that were in the film for much of its production but were ultimately cut before the film's theatrical release. The release also includes an additional 45 minutes of deleted scenes and other extras.

Cameron initially stated that ''Avatar'' would be released in 3-D around , but the studio issued a correction: "3-D is in the conceptual stage and ''Avatar'' will not be out on 3D Blu-ray in November." In , Fox stated that the 3-D version would be released some time in 2011. It was later revealed that Fox had given Panasonic an exclusive license for the 3-D Blu-ray version and only with the purchase of a Panasonic 3DTV. The length of Panasonic's exclusivity period is stated to last until . On , Cameron stated that the standalone 3-D Blu-ray would be the final version of the film's home release and that it was, "maybe one, two years out".

On Christmas Eve 2010, ''Avatar'' had its 3-D television world premiere on Sky.

Sequels

In 2006, Cameron stated that if ''Avatar'' was successful, he hoped to make two sequels to the film. In 2010, he said the film's widespread success confirmed that he will. The prospect of sequels was something he planned from the start, going so far as to include certain scenes in the film for future story followups. In , Cameron stated that his plans are to shoot both sequels in the planned trilogy back-to-back. He also mentioned, "what I'm working on primarily is the novel" and "presumably, once the novel is nailed down, work will begin in earnest on getting the sequel going."

Cameron stated that they are going to widen the universe while exploring other moons of Polyphemus. The first sequel will focus on the ocean of Pandora but will also feature more of the rainforest from the original movie. Later in 2010, Cameron announced his intention to capture footage for this sequel at the bottom of the Mariana Trench using a deepwater submersible. In December 2011, Cameron revealed that he is writing second and third films together, but that he is just starting to design the ocean ecosystem of Pandora and the other worlds to be included in story. The storyline, although continuing the environmental theme of the first film, will not be "strident", as the film will concentrate on entertainment encouraging action to save the oceans of our blue planet.

The sequels will continue to follow the characters of Jake and Neytiri. Cameron implied that the humans would return as the antagonists of the story. "I expect that those nasty humans didn't go away forever," he said. Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana have signed on to reprise their roles in future sequels. In , Cameron confirmed that Sigourney Weaver, who played Dr. Grace Augustine, will also be appearing in ''Avatar 2'', stating that "no one ever dies in science fiction."

The sequels, to be produced by Cameron's own Lightstorm Entertainment in partnership with 20th Century Fox, were originally scheduled to be released in and . In January 2012, producer Jon Landau stated that ''Avatar 2'' is "four years away" and is scheduled to be released in 2016. During the 2011 CinemaCon in Las Vegas, James Cameron stated his intention to film the two ''Avatar'' sequels at a higher frame rate than the industry standard 24 frames per second, in order to add a heightened sense of reality.

References

Further reading

A detailed analysis of the film's parallels with the teachings of the Vedas. }}

External links

Official shooting script

Category:2000s 3D films Category:2000s science fiction films Category:2009 films Category:20th Century Fox films Category:American epic films Category:American science fiction action films Category:Best Film Empire Award winners Category:Cloning in fiction Category:Environmental films Category:Epic films Category:Fictional-language films Category:Films about rebellions Category:Films about technology Category:Films about telepresence Category:Films directed by James Cameron Category:Films set in the 22nd century Category:Films shot digitally Category:Films shot in California Category:Films shot in Hawaii Category:Films shot in New Zealand Category:Films that won the Best Visual Effects Academy Award Category:Films whose art director won the Best Art Direction Academy Award Category:Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award Category:Films with live action and animation Category:IMAX films Category:Lightstorm Entertainment films Category:Planetary romances Category:Science fiction war films Category:Space adventure films Category:Performance capture in film

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name	James Horner
size	200px
background	non_performing_personnel
birth name	James Roy Horner
birth date	August 14, 1953
instrument	piano
origin	Los Angeles, U.S.
genre	Film score
occupation	Composer
years active	1979–present
associated acts	Will Jennings, Celine Dion, Sissel Kyrkjebø, Ian Underwood, Randy Kerber, Faith Hill, Josh Groban, Linda Ronstadt, Charlotte Church, Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Leona Lewis, Michael Jackson, London Philharmonic Orchestra}}

James Roy Horner (born August 14, 1953) is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements. His score to the 1997 film ''Titanic'' remains the best selling orchestral film soundtrack of all time.

In addition, Horner has scored over 100 films, frequently collaborating with acclaimed directors such as James Cameron and Ron Howard. Other scores he worked on include those of ''Braveheart'', ''*batteries not included'', ''Willow'', ''Apollo 13'', ''Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'', ''Cocoon'', ''Legends of the Fall'', ''Aliens'', ''Glory'', ''The Mask of Zorro'', ''Field of Dreams'', ''Enemy at the Gates'', ''The Missing'', ''Sneakers'', ''Casper'', ''Troy'', ''An American Tail'', ''The Land Before Time'', ''The Rocketeer'', ''A Beautiful Mind'', ''Mighty Joe Young'', ''The Perfect Storm'', ''Avatar'', ''The Karate Kid'', and most recently, ''Black Gold.''

His body of work is notable for including the scores to the two highest-grossing films of all time; ''Titanic'' and ''Avatar'', both of which were directed by James Cameron.

Horner is a two-time Academy Award-winner, and has received a total of 10 Oscar nominations. He has won numerous other awards, including the Golden Globe Award and the Grammy Award.

Early life

Horner was born in Los Angeles, the son of Austrian immigrants Joan (née Frankel) and Harry Horner, who was a production designer, set designer and occasional film director.

Horner started playing piano at the age of five. His early years were spent in London, where he attended the Royal College of Music. He subsequently attended Verde Valley High School in Sedona, Arizona. He received his bachelor's degree in music from the University of Southern California, and eventually earned a master's and started working on his doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles where he studied with Paul Chihara, among others. After several scoring assignments with the American Film Institute in the 1970s, he finished his teaching of music theory at UCLA and turned to film scoring.

Film and television scoring

Horner's first major film score was for the 1979 film, ''The Lady in Red''. He began his film scoring career by working for B film director and producer Roger Corman, with his first composer credit for Corman's big-budget ''Battle Beyond the Stars''. His works steadily gained notice in Hollywood, which led him to take on larger projects. Horner made a breakthrough in 1982, when he had the chance to score for ''Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'', establishing himself as a mainstream composer.

Horner continued composing music for high-profile releases during the 1980s, including ''48 Hrs.'' (1982), ''Krull'' (1983), ''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock'' (1984), ''Commando'' (1985), ''Cocoon'' (1985), ''Aliens'' (1986), ''*batteries not included'', ''Willow'' (1988), ''Glory'' and ''Field of Dreams'' (both 1989).

''Aliens'' earned Horner his first Academy Award nomination. He has been nominated an additional nine times since. Horner's scores have been sampled in film trailers for other films. The climax of the track ''Bishop's Countdown'' from his score for ''Aliens'' ranks fifth in the most commonly-used soundtrack cues for film trailers. Also, an unused fragment from ''Aliens'' was featured in a scene from ''Die Hard''. Several films whose scores were composed by Michael Kamen have had trailers featuring Horner's music; most notably, the music from ''Willow'' is substituted for the theme Kamen wrote for the 1993 remake of ''The Three Musketeers''. Horner also added his nominated Braveheart "For the Love of a Princess" single for Robert Zemeckis's Theatrical Trailer of ''Cast Away''.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Horner also wrote orchestral scores for children's films (particularly those produced by Amblin Entertainment), with credits for ''An American Tail'' (1986), ''The Land Before Time'' (1988), ''An American Tail: Fievel Goes West'' (1991), ''We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story'' (1993), and ''Casper'', ''Jumanji'', and ''Balto'' (all from 1995).

1995 saw Horner produce no fewer than six scores, including his commercially successful and critically acclaimed works for ''Braveheart'' and ''Apollo 13'', both of which earned him Academy Award nominations. Horner's greatest financial and critical success would come in 1997, with the score to the motion picture, ''Titanic''. The album became the best-selling primarily orchestral soundtrack in history, selling over 27 million copies worldwide.

At the 70th Academy Awards, Horner won Oscars for Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Song for "My Heart Will Go On" (which he co-wrote with Will Jennings). In addition, Horner and Jennings won three Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for the soundtrack and ''My Heart Will Go On''. ''Titanic'' also marked the first time in ten years that Horner worked with director James Cameron (following the highly stressful scoring sessions for ''Aliens'', Horner declared that he would never work with Cameron again and described the experience of scoring the film ''Aliens'' as "a nightmare").

Since ''Titanic'', Horner has continued to score for major productions (including ''The Perfect Storm'', ''A Beautiful Mind'', ''Enemy At The Gates'', ''The Mask of Zorro'', ''The Legend of Zorro'', ''House of Sand and Fog'' and ''Bicentennial Man'').

Aside from scoring major productions, Horner periodically works on smaller projects such as ''Iris'', ''Radio'' and ''Bobby Jones: A Stroke of Genius''. He received his eighth and ninth Academy Award nominations for ''A Beautiful Mind'' (2001) and ''House of Sand and Fog'' (2003), but lost on both occasions to Howard Shore. He frequently collaborates with film director Ron Howard, a partnership that began with ''Cocoon'' in 1985. Coincidentally, Horner's end title music from ''Glory'' can be heard in the trailer for Howard's ''Backdraft''.

Horner composed the 2006-2011 theme music for the ''CBS Evening News''. The theme was introduced as part of the debut of Katie Couric as anchor on September 5, 2006. It has since been adopted by most other CBS News programs as well.

Horner recollaborated with James Cameron on the 2009 film ''Avatar'', which was released in December 2009 and has since become the highest grossing film of all time, surpassing ''Titanic'' (also directed by Cameron and scored by Horner).

Horner spent over two years working on the score for ''Avatar'', and did not take on any other projects during that time. Horner's work on ''Avatar'' earned him numerous award nominations, including his tenth Oscar nomination, a Golden Globe nomination, a BAFTA nomination, and a Grammy Award nomination, all of which he lost to Michael Giacchino for ''Up''.

Regarding the experience of scoring ''Avatar'', Horner said, "Avatar has been the most difficult film I have worked on and the biggest job I have undertaken... I work from four in the morning to about ten at night and that’s been my way of life since March. That's the world I'm in now and it makes you feel estranged from everything. I'll have to recover from that and get my head out of Avatar." It is currently unknown whether or not Horner will return as composer for the sequel(s) to ''Avatar''.

Horner recently composed the score for the film ''The Karate Kid'' replacing Atli Örvarsson. This is the first film Horner has worked on since ''Avatar''. The film was released in 2010.

Horner's next projects will be the score to ''The Song of Names'', which is due for release in 2011, and The Amazing Spider-Man in 2012 starring Andrew Garfield.

Critical debate

Horner has been criticised for transposing hooks, orchestral motifs, or larger passages from other scores of his own or of other composers. These contentions are points of fierce debates between supporters of Horner and his detractors.

List of scores

Film

1970s

1978 ''The Drought'' (for the American Film Institute)

1978 ''Fantasies'' (for the American Film Institute)

1978 ''Gist and Evans'' (for the American Film Institute)

1978 ''Landscapes'' (for the American Film Institute)

1978 ''Just for a Laugh'' (for the American Film Institute)

1978 ''The Watcher'' (for the American Film Institute)

1979 ''The Lady in Red''

1979 ''Up from the Depths''

1980s

1980 ''Humanoids from the Deep''

1980 ''Battle Beyond the Stars'' (score reused in later Roger Corman productions)

1981 ''Deadly Blessing''

1981 ''The Hand''

1981 ''Wolfen''

1981 ''The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper''

1982 ''48 Hrs.''

1982 ''Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan''

1983 ''The Dresser''

1983 ''Gorky Park''

1983 ''Testament''

1983 ''Uncommon Valor''

1983 ''Brainstorm''

1983 ''Krull''

1983 ''Something Wicked This Way Comes''

1984 ''Star Trek III: The Search for Spock''

1984 ''The Stone Boy''

1985 ''The Journey of Natty Gann''

1985 ''Volunteers''

1985 ''Commando''

1985 ''Cocoon''

1985 ''Heaven Help Us''

1986 ''The Name of the Rose''

1986 ''Off Beat''

1986 ''Where the River Runs Black''

1986 ''An American Tail (Oscar Nominee)''

1986 ''Aliens (Golden Globe & Oscar Nominee)''

1987 ''P.K. and the Kid''

1987 ''Project X''

1987 ''*batteries not included''

1988 ''The Land Before Time''

1988 ''Vibes''

1988 ''Cocoon: The Return''

1988 ''Red Heat''

1988 ''Willow''

1989 ''Dad''

1989 ''Field of Dreams (Oscar Nominee)''

1989 ''Glory (Golden Globe Nominee)''

1989 ''In Country''

1989 ''Honey, I Shrunk the Kids''

1990s

1990 ''I Love You to Death''

1990 ''Another 48 Hours''

1991 ''An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (Golden Globe Nominee)''

1991 ''Once Around''

1991 ''The Rocketeer''

1991 ''Class Action''

1992 ''Thunderheart''

1992 ''Sneakers''

1992 ''Unlawful Entry''

1992 ''Patriot Games''

1993 ''Bopha!''

1993 ''House of Cards''

1993 ''Jack the Bear''

1993 ''The Man Without a Face''

1993 ''Once Upon a Forest''

1993 ''Hocus Pocus'' (Sarah's Theme)

1993 ''Searching for Bobby Fischer''

1993 ''Swing Kids''

1993 ''We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story''

1993 ''The Pelican Brief''

1993 ''A Far Off Place''

1994 ''Legends of the Fall (Golden Globe Nominee)''

1994 ''The Pagemaster''

1994 ''Clear and Present Danger''

1995 ''Jade''

1995 ''Balto''

1995 ''Jumanji''

1995 ''Apollo 13 (Oscar nominee)''

1995 ''Casper''

1995 ''Braveheart (Golden Globe, BAFTA & Oscar Nominee)''

1996 ''Ransom''

1996 ''To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday''

1996 ''Courage Under Fire''

1996 ''The Spitfire Grill''

1997 ''Titanic (Golden Globe, Grammy & Oscar Winner, BAFTA nominee)''

1997 ''The Devil's Own''

1998 ''Mighty Joe Young''

1998 ''The Mask of Zorro''

1998 ''Deep Impact''

1999 ''Bicentennial Man''

2000s

2000 ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas''

2000 ''The Perfect Storm''

2001 ''Iris''

2001 ''A Beautiful Mind (Golden Globe & Oscar Nominee)''

2001 ''Enemy at the Gates''

2002 ''The Four Feathers''

2002 ''Windtalkers''

2003 ''House of Sand and Fog (Oscar Nominee)''

2003 ''The Missing''

2003 ''Beyond Borders''

2003 ''Radio''

2004 ''The Forgotten''

2004 ''Troy''

2004 ''Bobby Jones: A Stroke of Genius''

2005 ''The Chumscrubber''

2005 ''Flightplan''

2005 ''The Legend of Zorro''

2005 ''The New World''

2006 ''Apocalypto''

2006 ''All the King's Men''

2007 ''The Life Before Her Eyes''

2008 ''The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas''

2008 ''The Spiderwick Chronicles''

2009 ''Avatar (Golden Globe, BAFTA & Oscar Nominee)''

2010s

2010 ''The Karate Kid''

2011 ''Black Gold''

2012 ''Cristiada''

2012 ''The Amazing Spider-Man''

2013 ''The Song of Names''

Television

1981 ''A Few Days in Weasel Creek''

1982 ''A Piano for Mrs. Cimino''

1983 ''Between Friends''

1985 ''Amazing Stories'' (Episode: "Alamo Jobe")

1985 ''Faerie Tale Theatre'' (Episode: "The Pied Piper of Hamelin")

1985 ''Surviving''

1990 ''Tales from the Crypt'' (Episode: "Cutting Cards")

1990 ''Extreme Close-Up''

1992 ''Crossroads'' (theme)

1992 ''Fish Police'' (theme and pilot episode)

2000 ''Freedom Song''

2006 ''CBS Evening News''

Short films

1985 ''Let's Go''

1986 ''Captain EO'' (shown at Walt Disney theme parks worldwide)

1989 ''Tummy Trouble''

1991 ''Norman and the Killer''

Concert works

1976: "Conversations"

1977: "Spectral Shimmers"

1998: "Titanic Suite"

2000: "A Forest Passage"

Miscellaneous works

Logo music for Universal Pictures (1990–1997), Lionsgate, Icon Productions and CBS Films.

THX trailer "Cimarron"

Music for the P-51 aerobatic flight team "The Horsemen"

Awards and nominations

Horner has received 10 Academy Award nominations, 8 for Best Original Music Score, and twice for Best Original Song. Out of these nominations, Horner has won two Oscars, for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for ''Titanic''.

Horner has also received five Golden Globe nominations, all in the category of Best Original Score, winning one, for ''Titanic'', as well as seven Grammy Award nominations, winning for ''Glory'' (Best Score), ''An American Tail'' and ''Titanic'', the latter two being in the category of Best Song. He has also received three BAFTA nominations, but has not won any.

{| style="width:100%;" |- valign="top" | style="width:50%;"|

; Academy Award

1987: ''Aliens'' (Best Original Score)

1987: "Somewhere Out There" (from: ''An American Tail'', Best Original Song)

1990: ''Field of Dreams'' (Best Original Score)

1996: ''Apollo 13'' (Best Original Dramatic Score)

1996: ''Braveheart'' (Best Original Dramatic Score)

1998: "My Heart Will Go On" (from: ''Titanic'', Best Original Song, Winner)

1998: ''Titanic'' (Best Original Dramatic Score, Winner)

2002: ''A Beautiful Mind'' (Best Original Score)

2004: ''House Of Sand And Fog'' (Best Original Score)

2010: ''Avatar'' (Best Original Score)

| style="width:50%;"|

; Golden Globe

1987: "Somewhere Out There" (from: ''An American Tail'', Best Original Song)

1990: ''Glory'' (Best Original Score)

1992: "Dreams To Dream" (from: ''An American Tail: Fievel Goes West'', Best Original Song)

1995: ''Legends of the Fall'' (Best Original Score)

1996: ''Braveheart'' (Best Original Score)

1998: "My Heart Will Go On" (from: ''Titanic'', Best Original Song, Winner)

1998: ''Titanic'' (Best Original Score, Winner)

2002: ''A Beautiful Mind'' (Best Original Score)

2009: ''Avatar'' (Best Original Score)

|}

{| style="width:100%;" |- valign="top" | style="width:50%;"|

; Grammy

1988: ''An American Tail''

1988: "Somewhere Out There" (from: ''An American Tail'', Winner)

1990: ''Field of Dreams''

1991: ''Glory'' (Winner)

1996: "Whatever You Imagine" (from: ''The Pagemaster'')

1999: "My Heart Will Go On" (from: ''Titanic'', Winner)

2003: ''A Beautiful Mind''

| style="width:50%;"|

; Satellite Awards

1998: "My Heart Will Go On" (from: ''Titanic'', Winner)

1998: ''Titanic'' (Winner)

2002: "All Love Can Be" (from: ''A Beautiful Mind'', Winner)

2002: ''A Beautiful Mind''

2004: ''The Missing''

|}

; BAFTA Awards

1995: ''Braveheart''

1997: ''Titanic''

2009: ''Avatar'' (Award for Best Sound Engineer assisted by Rumen Lishkov)

AFI

Horner's scores for the following films were nominated for AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores:

''Apollo 13'' (1995)

''Braveheart'' (1995)

''Field of Dreams'' (1989)

''Glory'' (1989)

''Titanic'' (1997)

References

External links

James Horner interview (1983) from CinemaScore magazine

Category:1953 births Category:American composers Category:American film score composers Category:American people of Austrian descent Category:Best Song Academy Award winning songwriters Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:Saturn Award winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Living people Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni Category:University of Southern California alumni

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