AVATAR

AVATAR MOVIE

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 fictional Earth-like world in the Alpha Centauri planetary system. Humans are engaged in mining Pandora's reserves of a precious mineral, 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 bodies used by the film's characters to interact with the Na'vi.

Avatar was filmed with newly developed stereoscopic

cameras that simulate human sight. In this scene,

Jake Sully flies into battle to save his newly adopted tribe.

Avatar had been in development since 1994 by Cameron, who wrote an 80-page scriptment for the film. Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Titanic, and the film would have been released in 1999, but according to Cameron, "technology needed to catch up" with his vision of the film. In early 2006, Cameron developed the script, the language and the culture of Pandora. He mentioned that sequels are possible if Avatar is successful. The film was released in traditional 2-D and 3-D, as well as IMAX 3D formats. Avatar is officially budgeted at $237 million; other estimates put the cost at $280–310 million to produce and an estimated $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. Opening to critical acclaim and commercial success, it grossed an estimated $27 million on its opening day and made $77,025,481 in the United States and Canada on its opening weekend. Worldwide, Avatar grossed an estimated $232,180,000 on its opening weekend, the ninth-largest opening-weekend gross of all time, and the largest for a non-franchise, non-sequel and original film. After 17 days in release, it became the fastest film to reach $1 billion in box office receipts and the fifth to gross more than $1 billion worldwide. Less than three weeks after its release, the film would become the second highest grossing film of all time worldwide.

Written and directed by James Cameron

James Francis Cameron -Canadian film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, and inventor. His writing and directing work includes The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009). The latter two are the highest grossing films to date. In total his directorial efforts have grossed approximately US$1.5 billion in North America and to $3.68 billion worldwide. After several feature films, Cameron turned his focus to documentary filmmaking, and to co-developing the digital 3-D Fusion Camera System. Described by a biographer as part-scientist and part-artist, Cameron has also contributed to underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies. He returned to feature filmmaking with Avatar, which made use of the Fusion Camera System technology.