Research into a Major Film Release – Avatar
The estimated budget for Avatar is $237 million. It was release at the cinema on December 18th 2009.
In 1994 James Cameron wrote an 80 page script for Avatar. Cameron has a partnership with visual effects house Digital Domain, who 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. As a result Cameron decided to concentrate on making documentaries and refining the technology for the next few years.
Newspaper Article
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19960812&id=8rsMAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Al8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6553,2562816
The first photo of the film was released on August 14, 2009 and Empire magazine released exclusive omages from the film in it’s October issue. James 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, where 25 minutes of footage was screened in Dolby 3D. Cameron announced that August 21 will be ‘Avatar Day’. On this day the trailer for the film was released in all theatrical formats. The offical game trailer and toy line of the film were also unveiled on this day.
The film was promoted in as episode of the Fox Network series Bones in the episode ‘The Gamer In the The Grease’. 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.
The Coca-Cola Company teamed up with 20th Century Fox to launch a worldwide marketing campaign to promote the film. The website AVTR.com was was created to help with this promotion. When held in front of a webcam, specially marked bottles and cans of Coca-Cola Zero enabled users to interact with the website’s 3D features using augmented reality (AR) technology.
Avatar: The Game
James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game was released December 1, 2009 for most video game consoles, including PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo Ds, iPhone and Microsoft Indows and December 8 for PSP. Cameron chose Ubisoft Montreal to create an Avatar game for the film in 2007. Cameron decided to include some of Ubisoft’s vehicle and creature designs into the film.
Other Merchandise
In December2009 Mattel Toys announced 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 scane using a web cam revealing unique on screen content that is special to each specific action figure.
McDonald’s Happy Meals distributed a series of toys representing characters from the film in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Columbia, the US and Venezuela.
On November 24, 2009 Harper Entertainment released Avatar:A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora, is a 224 page book in the form of a field guide to the film’s fictional setting of the planet Pandora. It is presented as a compilation of data collected by the humans about Pandora.
In December 2009 France Post released a special limited edition stamp based on Avatar coinciding with its worldwide release.
DVD
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released Avatar on DVD and Bu-ray in the US on April 22, 2010 and in the UK on April 26. The US release was done to coincide with Earth Day.
Avatar set a first day launch record in the US for Blu-Ray sales at 1.5 million units sold, breaking the record previously held by The Dark Knight (6 million units sold).
