OVERVEIW:
“A paraplegic Marine dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.” (IMDB bio)
Release Date: 18/12/2009
Genre: Action / Adventure / Fantasy
Running Time: 162 minutes
Director: James Cameron
Writer: James Cameron
Produced By: James Cameron / Jon Landau
Approx. Income: $1,748,050,319
Approx. Expense: $516,262,000
Approx. Profit: $1,231,788,319
Production Budget: $425,000
Domestic Gross: $760,507,625
Worldwide Gross: 2,783,918,982

General:
First film to gross over $ 2 billion
Released for traditional, £D and in some select South Korean theatres, 4D viewing.
Highest Grossing film of all time
Top selling Blu-Ray of all time
Was nominated for 9 academy awards and won 3 (Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects)

COMPANIES INVOLVED:
LIGHTSTORM ENTERTAINMENT
Founded by James Cameron in 1990
Produced other James Cameron Titles like Terminator 2: Judgement day and Titanic
Producing Avatar 2, 3 and 4

DUNE ENTERTAINMENT
American motion picture financing company
Originally affiliated with 20th Century Fox before negotiations over a new deal fell through
Affiliated with 20th Century Fox until 2012
Now contracted by Warner Bros.

INGENIOUS MEDIA
UK based
Media Investment and advisory group
Others over services, i.e. estate planning service

CONTINUED:

20th CENTURY FOX
Distributed the film
Main company involved in the movie
Cameron signed a deal with them to produce 3 sequels
Also Internationally distributed Titanic
One of the 6 major American film studios
World’s 2nd largest Major film studio behind Warner Bros.
Involved Dune entertainment due to existing contract at the time
Originally subsidiary of News Corporation. Now 21st Century Fox
Based in Los Angeles
Contracted the first African-American cinema star, Dorothy Dandridge
Founded in May the 31st 1935 by Joseph M. Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck
‘Fox’ comes from original founder of the Fox Film Corporation in 1915, William Fox; a pioneer of motion pictures, who had to sell his control due to bankruptcy.

PRE-PRODUCTION:
In 1994, director James Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for Avatar. He said that he got inspiration from "every single science fiction book" he had read throughout his childhood, as well as from adventure novels written by “Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard”. He also grew inspiration for the unique setting from a dream he had been told about by his mother After having finished making ‘Titanic’, James Cameron said that he will begin making a new film; Avatar. He went on to reveal that his new movie would make use of “synthetic, or computer-generated, actors”. He estimated that the project would cost around $100 million and involve at least six protagonists. He then went on further to reveal that these characters will “appear to be real, but do not exist in the physical world".
James Cameron had a partnership with visual effects house ‘Digital Domain’. This gave Cameron an easy job in finding a studio to support his ideas, with Digital Domain joining the project. Together (Cameron and his associates) predicted that production would start in the summer of 1997, with a 1999 release. This, however, did not happen as Cameron felt that technology was not good enough at this period of time to allow him to create what he envisaged. Instead, he decided to continue to focus on making documentaries and to allow technology to catch up to his ‘expectations’.

FILMING:
Principle Photography for the movie started in April 2007, in L.A. and Wellington (New Zealand). James Cameron described the film as a “hybrid”, consisting of full live-action shooting (40%), as well as computer generated characters and live environments (60%). The live action was shot though an adaptation of Cameron Vince Pace’s ‘digital 3-D Fusion Camera System’. It was revealed by Fox in January of 2007, that Avatar will be shot in 24 fps, despite Cameron’s