James Cameron’s Avatar became an unprecedented global success when it was released at the end of 2009, going on to earn more than two and a half billion dollars from its $250m. budget. To be able to take ten times your budget when you’re starting off with that kind of money is utterly insane by any standards.

Since its release, it’s continued to earn ever more money with more than one DVD/Blu-Ray releases, and a final 3D Blu-Ray release is still on the cards somewhere down the line.

THR are now reporting that the Avatar brand – because that really is what it’s become – is now developing even further afield, moving into theme park territory. The first Avatar-themed “land” will be built at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and construction is expected to have begun by 2013.

“The first Avatar attraction will be inside the Animal Kingdom park. Disney said this was chosen because “with its emphasis on living in harmony with nature, Animal Kingdom is a natural fit for the Avatar stories, which share the same philosophy.””

Cameron and his producing partner Jon Landau will be on board as creative consultants and will be working alongside Walt Disney Imagineering and the famous Disney Imagineers to design the Avatar attractions, with plans to develop similar projects in the several other Disney parks across the globe.

““Avatar created a world which audiences can discover again and again and now, through this incredible partnership with Disney, we’ll be able to bring Pandora to life like never before. With two new Avatar films currently in development, we’ll have even more locations, characters and stories to explore,” said James Cameron. “I’m chomping at the bit to start work with Disney’s legendary Imagineers to bring our Avatar universe to life.  Our goal is to go beyond current boundaries of technical innovation and experiential storytelling, and give park goers the chance to see, hear, and touch the world of Avatar with an unprecedented sense of reality.””

And of course, Cameron has already announced that he has two further Avatar films in the works, with release dates currently scheduled for December 2014 and 2015, which will undoubtedly do wonders for ticket sales if the attractions can be finished in time – and Disney will likely make sure that they are. Disney’s theme parks are visited by millions upon millions of people every year, and they’ll soon be given the chance to go into the world of Pandora and see, hear, and feel it like never before.

When Walt Disney was creating Disneyland back in the 1950s, he started a TV show that ran simultaneously with the park’s construction, and millions of Americans invited Disney into their homes on a weekly basis to see how the development was going. When it finally came time to open the park, for those first visitors, it was precisely like seeing the things from their television screens back home in real life with their very own eyes.

If Cameron, Landau, and Disney’s Imagineers can pull this off well, and there’s no reason to suggest they can’t, future visitors to the park should be able to experience the very same thing as those first visitors more than fifty years ago. Pandora is an incredibly beautiful world in the Avatar films, and even though I’m not sure I’ll ever go myself, I can imagine seeing it in “reality” (for you could argue the extent to which Disney theme parks are “real”) would truly be something.

As soon as Avatar finished its super successful cinema run rumours emerged that the world hadn’t seen the end of the story, and that we were to expect a second chapter to Jake and Neytiri’s adventures in Pandora.

The Hollywood Reporter has now announced that director James Cameron is getting ready to film not one, but two sequels to his “biggest blockbuster of all time” masterpiece.

The two movies are scheduled to come out over the course of the next four years, the first in December 2014 and the second a year after that, and Lightstorm Entertainment (Cameron’s company) is now just starting to get into gear for the mammoth work that such a complex and motion capture technology advanced production will require.

Cameron is selling his old office building in Santa Monica (currently listed at $11.85 million), probably in an attempt to at least reduce the inevitable work-related stress by having his offices and studio consolidated into one location not far from his home, down the coast of Malibu.

It is likely that Wellington based WETA, the special effects company which looked after the visual effects in the Lord of the Rings saga as well as those in the first Avatar, will be employed again, although Cameron hasn’t confirmed as of yet whether live action scenes will take place in New Zealand as they were for the first Avatar.

While fans will have to wait quite a while, the buzz around the Avatar sequels production has already started and looks like it could rival that of Peter Jackson’s long awaited The Hobbit. More news to come soon…

Report by Margherita Pellegrino.

Not long before fans of James Cameron’s Avatar get to spend a little more time in the world of Pandora and as the Extended Collector’s Edition readies itself for the Blu-ray and DVD launch on the 15th of November,  you can get a sneak preview of what to expect with this new clip from the film.

It’s basically a hunting scene and you can see why it found its way onto the digital cutting room floor, but it’s still nice to see more of the world.

Here’s everything you need to know about the new edition, and if you want  to see more (and you have the original Avatar Blu-ray) you can right now..

Click Here to see the clip, which must be considered a tease as the resolution is nowhere near what it needs to be to get the full effect, but for those desperate for more from the gushing box of Pandora this will do nicely.

Here’s a deleted scene from a little art-house picture you may have heard of.

It debuted at the Scream Awards a couple of night back, and you have the opportunity  to see Jake Sully on earth before his epic trip to Pandora, highlighting the fact that he is a great warrior by leaping out of chair and beating some guy up in a bar. It’s completely understandable why Cameron would cut this out as it doesn’t add anything really, and would literally take viewers out of that incredible world he created.

The end of this scene where Sully is thrown out of the bar headfirst by bouncers (before having his wheelchair aimed directly at his head), has a whiff of Spaced about it and is unintentionally hilarious.

Check it out below.

Courtesy of io9.com

It looks like James Cameron could be heading back to the jungle sooner than we thought.

Yahoo (via Slashfilm) have reported that the self-proclaimed king of the world has stated in a Brazilian newspaper that he will make a return visit to the country and produce a 3D film about the indigenous Xikrin-Kayapo tribe, who are based in the Amazon.

Cameron is no stranger to documentary-making as his deep sea expeditions have proved, and it’s nice to see he has an altruistic side by agreeing to document a tribe whose environment is potentially under threat from the proposed building of a huge dam close by.

Documenting (in 3D) the activities and behaviour of this fascinating tribe (who perforate their ears and lips in early infancy to emphasize hearing and speech)  could be a nice real-life companion piece to Avatar’s fictitious Pandora natives.

I wonder if Cameron will treat the Xikrin-Kayapo to an impromptu showing of his tale of young love cut short by an iceberg?

To celebrate the release of James Cameron’s Avatar on Blu-ray and DVD Fox flew actor Stephen Lang over to the UK to talk all things Pandora, and once he made it through Ming the Merciless’s Volcanic Ash Cloud of Certain Doom we were lucky enough to sit down with the man to ask him a few questions.

Lang gives a gracious and thoughtful interview, his talent as an actor evident from his body of work beyond Avatar, and he talks about the process of shooting Avatar with James Cameron, his thoughts on Colonel Quaritch’s return in the Avatar sequels, and how Quaritch came to be as we see him on the screen.

It’s a fascinating look at his character, and the film itself and I want to thank Stephen for taking the time to talk with us.

You can listen to the interview below.

Exclusive Interview with Stephen Lang.

As a bonus I’ve embedded the clip from Muse of Fire by Lawrence Bridges, mentioned in the interview.

James Cameron’s Avatar has railed through box office records and Fox are basking in its afterglow with coffers overflowing and looking ahead to their next wave of cash courtesy of Pandora.

The astonishing success of Avatar does have its drawbacks, primarily how to overcome the inevitable disappointment of the transfer, and loss of the all important third dimension, to the home entertainment market. The answer is simple: Re-release the film but add in all of the extra scenes which were left on the cutting room floor.

That’s the rumour, according to THR, who put an extra forty minutes on the running time of the film, already a not inconsiderable 162 minutes, however the likelihood is that the extra footage will far less than this, to remain in the IMAX 170 minute limit.

Cynics may point out that the beating of this particularly bountiful cash pinata through a re-release following the 2D DVD and Blu-ray in late Spring but I’ve always had the feeling that Avatar would be around again sooner than we thought. With the proposed sequels no doubt gearing up for production, as well as Cameron’s rumoured 2012 Titanic re-release in 3D, it seems as though the huge Avatar fanbase will have many more opportunities to return to Pandora again and again.

If you’re one of the 5 people on planet earth who haven’t seen James Cameron’s Avatar yet, you might want to avoid reading this post as it’s going to be hard to write without putting in a couple of spoilers. You’ve been warned so skip to another post if you don’t want to read more…..

At the end of Avatar, as you know if you’ve seen it, Sigourney Weaver’s character, Dr. Grace Augustine is killed off after being shot by Col. Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang (my interview with him here). She then got uploaded into Eywa, the spiritual tree of souls which is basically nature’s brain on planet Pandora where you go when you die. It seems though that Sigourney Weaver will be returning to Avatar 2 after appearing on French TV show, ‘Le Grand Journal’ and stating “it was clear she already talked about it with James Cameron and she surely would be part of it.”

This information comes from a letter sent into AICN. They also have the clip where Weaver say this which you can see embeded below. So does this mean that it’ll be a prequel or do you think that Weaver will be inbuilt into Pandora somehow? I guess for now we can only speculate but obviously more info as we get it.

Yeah, I know. It’s pretty strong, and I can feel the ire of those reading even as I type this. (Please note, this isn’t our official review, you can find that here, as written by Gary). Believe me though, it was never supposed to be like this. I’ve known about Avatar for a long time. I’ve been aware of the great time and effort (and money) that have been spent on this project. And those of you that read my article Could Avatar be a Cutting-Edge White Elephant know that I was desperate to get tickets to see it at the Imax.

I wanted to love it, I really did. And whilst I have a reputation for being cynical about movies, I want to like them all. If I didn’t, why would I spend so much of my time writing about them? It’s important to point out that when the film ended, 90% of the audience around me applauded. So i’m well aware, it’s my problem and not theirs.

This meant that though i’d decided to post my thoughts on the movie before i’d seen it, once I had, I felt that I should probably keep my opinion quiet, in order to avoid the vitriol that would inevitably be pointed in my direction. I thought again, however, and decided it might be cathartic to explore why a movie that had united the industry in praise had left me so very cold.

The first issue, which I was already expecting, was the storyline. What I wasn’t expecting, though, was just how simplistic and predictable it would turn out to be. I had only watched the first proper trailer, and had in my mind the general direction the story would take. The direction, it turned out, was exactly as expected, with no deviation whatsoever. The story of the human race trying to move on an indigenous population in order to make use of localised natural resources is nothing new, and has been explored more fully in an episode of Stargate SG1, amongst numerous other places. Along with that, it takes a particular talent to turn the serious issue of mass genocide into a poorly executed love story.

Which brings me to my next issue with Avatar. Give or take a couple of plot devices, it feels very much like a ‘greatest hits of Star Wars’ homage, glued together with Starship Troopers. Much of the environment of Pandora brings to mind the locale of Naboo, replete with the ‘there’s always a bigger fish’ philosophy. The robots shooting aliens theme echoes the finale of Phantom Menace, with a bit of the moon of Endor also fit in. The mostly CGI environment, along with the PG13 family friendly action throughout most of the film firmly gave it that undeniable Lucas feel. The fish out of water story of Sully learning the ways of the natives also had a very Disney-esque feel.

And maybe for me that’s a large part of the problem. I can no longer stomach family-friendly movies. The attempt to appeal to such a diverse demographic tends to give family movies an ‘everybody gets what no-one wants’ atmosphere. Whilst as a kid I lapped that up, nowadays, with much less time available to watch a two and a half hour movie, i just crave something more. Adult issues explored in a thorough and thought provoking way. In a climate of adults paying to see Harry Potter and The Twilight Saga, i find myself in the minority.

It’s not necessarily that the story of an intergalactic war fought on alien turf can’t address real issues. If instead Cameron had chosen to adapt Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, for example, we could have had a classic on our hands. Instead the filmmaker opts for black and white. The evil human race attempts to wipe out the unknown enemy it doesn’t understand. With right on their side, the beleaguered, peaceful beings must triumph in the end.

With a great cast committed to bringing the script to life, there could have been a saving grace. Unfortunately, this is Avatar’s lowest point. There honestly isn’t a good performance on display. Weaver, et al are all terribly wooden, not at all helped by poor dialogue and contrived exposition devices. Also not helped by a chronic lack of depth to the characters. Neytiri never says one word that speaks to her personality, and all we ever find out about Sully is that his twin brother died, and he used to be a marine. Tell me something, anything else we know about him? What’s the point of creating a fully 3D environment and then filling it with woefully two dimensional characters?

The gruff Colonel Quaritch (HeyUGuys interview with Stephen Lang here), obsessed with the annihilation of a species, would have been the most shallow character in any other movie, but here at least he has the courage of his convictions. What about the abrupt mid-mission turn by Michelle Rodriguez’ Trudy? Where did that come from? Even Sully himself turns on a dime. We all knew it was coming except him. In his Avatar he was having the time of his life, yet in the lab showed no conflict over the mission he was carrying out, the double life he was leading, until he made the sudden u-turn in just one short scene.

This flaw may not have been purely a fault of the script. After praise for his turn in Terminator: Salvation Worthington has been hailed as the latest in a long line of ‘next big things’. On this evidence, that’s an extremely premature assertion. He managed to display no on-screen presence whatsoever. Until, in fact, being transplanted into his Avatar. When a computer generated version of you shows more charisma and likeability than the real deal, you have a bit of a problem.

Which nicely leads me onto the positive, the reason we are all here. Avatar is visually stunning. There can be no argument. The vista of Pandora is a sight to behold, the aliens beautifully realised. And yes, much of the 3D is awe-inspiring, particularly in the beginning. It’s not the stuff that pops out of the screen that’s the most impressive, but the more subtle yet astonishing sense of depth that is created. This is displayed at it’s best in the opening scenes of stasis pods being opened, and their inhabitants floating not just across the screen, but towards and away from it. The water and fire effects are also phenomenal. And i’ll also concede that the finale is action packed and surprisingly brutal at times.

For me, though, however great the visuals were, it didn’t stop me becoming bored throughout the overlong middle part of the movie. Avatar is being nominated for awards, and is a likely contender for the expanded best picture category at the Oscars. It clearly deserves it, as the myriad of great review scores attests. But it baffles me. If great CGI and a weak and plodding storyline is enough for an academy award, presumably we can also expect Transformers 2 and GI-JOE to appear on the list of ten?

The test for Avatar comes when it finds release on DVD and Blu-Ray, when the limits of those technologies hamper the 3D experience. Will Avatar then be shown to be the emperors new clothes? I don’t believe so. I believe i’ll be shown to be the one that’s wrong. And I believe James Cameron’s opus will be the movie that makes Blu-Ray in the home no longer the exception, but the rule. A fitting legacy for the product of over a decade of commitment, and the hundreds of millions of dollars spent bringing it to fruition.

Bazmann – Check out the HeyUGuys IMDb250 Project here (Avatar is number 26). You can follow our progress at www.twitter.com/baz_mann and http://twitter.com/gary_phillips_

The critical reception enjoyed by James Cameron’s Avatar bought a sigh of relief to Twentieth Century Fox and as embargoes disappeared over the world the early buzz and reviews have ensured Avatar is on its way to becoming a box office hit.

Variety have put a figure on Avatar’s first day at the cinemas in the US and its one of the biggest openings this year – $27 million. 

Variety put this into context and reminds us that Avatar trails I Am Legend and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in the December opening day stakes, but what does this really mean?

Firstly it means that the buzz generated by the early reviews broke through the internet frontier and into the public domain resulting in Cameron’s film enjoying a furious and positive word of mouth campaign which was reflected in the box office dollars. The strong opening also means that Avatar should be well on its way to recouping its enormous budget and adds weight to the recently touted notion of two further journeys to Pandora.

I’ve still to see the film but from what I’ve heard this is a return to the finest form James Cameron is capable of, and it may be that the 3D angle is persuading more people to visit the cinemas rather than wait for a DVD or Blu-ray version. 

Whatever happens over Christmas and beyond it seems the forecasters of box office apocalypse were mistaken, and Avatar is clearly on its way to being a commercial as well as critical success.

Firstly a huge thanks to Sky Movies HD for sending me along to the World Premiere of Avatar on Thursday night which was a truly amazing experience (See Dave’s Premiere footage and photos here and the press conference here). Seeing Sigourney Weaver, James Cameron, Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Joel Moore, Giovanni Ribisi, Jon Landau and James Cameron all excitingly and passionately talking about Avatar was a great build up to the film.

Secondly before I review the film and give my opinions on this epic blockbusting and revolutionary movie I have to say this is the first film ever made, in my opinion, that you HAVE to see at the cinema, it’s what it’s made for and the only true way to experience the beauty of Avatar in all it’s true glory as you won’t have this experience on a dodgy copy bought in the pub, on a special edition Blu-Ray version released with the Red and Green lenses to compensate for our standard TVs or even at a cinema showing the standard 2D version because nothing will live up to seeing it in full 3D on a big cinema screen, I promise you. It’s changed everything I expect from a film forever and raised the bar for everything to come.

I will try keep the review as spoiler free as possible so read on for more.

The Story of Avatar

Avatar’s story will be what most reviewers base the strength of this movie but to me it’s so much more than that. The story as a whole is good, very enjoyable and engrossing which peaks at the immense and reaches a low as almost annoying but only once or twice in the overall 2.5 hours. Avatar is fundamentally a love story between Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and a native of Pandoran Na’vi called Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) but it is also about the invading and mining of the world of Pandora for it’s rich valuable raw material and the battle of these two factions over it. Avatar is also of course an action film and those that want their action thick and fast wont be disappointed, in fact they will be beside themselves with joy as the action, when it comes, is unforgettable and perfectly choreographed.

Jake is a paraplegic sent to Pandora to replace his deceased twin brother’s position on the Avatar programme, lead by Dr. Grace Augustine (the excellent Sigourney Weaver), where Na’vi and human DNA are joined to create an Avatar, a remotely controlled biological Na’vi body using the consciousness of the user. Once in this body Jake is thrilled at being able to use his legs again and goes all out immersing himself into the world of Pandora, joining the Na’vi to gain their trust and attempt to negotiate a solution for the mining to proceed and we go along for the unforgettable ride.

The battle hardened and menacing Colonel Miles Quaritch (played brilliantly by Stephen Lang – with whom we have an exclusive interview which will be posted shortly), is the real villain of the film, effectively bullying the decisions of Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) the administrator for the company wanting to mine Pandora who also has Little regard for the Na’vi inhabitants, together they forge ahead against the advice of the Avatar scientists to excavate the area under a sacred tree of the Na’vi’s spiritual land and home. This leaves little choice but war. Jake is used as a mole for Col Quaritch after he is accepted by the Na’vi and reports back Intel, Jakes initial motive being the promise of an operation to get the use of his legs back but as he becomes more involved with the Na’vi he becomes unsure what side he wants to be on.

The war builds momentum and for the final third of Avatar we are treated to some of the most enjoyable set pieces of action from the film that are all superbly paced and stunning to experience in 3D. A scene where the humans assault the Na’vi’s sacred tree is just so remarkable I remember my eyes were hurting cause I just did not want to blink and miss anything, the scale and size of what was happening was incredible and a special fx dream, a true joy to watch.

The Design of Avatar

The film is technically the most stunning piece of cinema I’ve ever seen, nothing has ever been done like this before. It’s almost flawless in it’s design of the planet of Pandora, it’s many inhabitants, the numerous ships, the big mecha robot war suits, the characters, the plant life, the Avatar concept, weapons and those huge floating mountains, it’s all just so incredible to see unveiling before your eyes and when you see the floating mountains of Pandora you won’t believe they aren’t real.

The step up from previous motion capture designed characters in movies is just phenomenal. It’s so hard to tell they are CGI, at times it just felt like the actors were in blue makeup and that is a kudos to their design. It was the Na’vi’s emotions that brought them to life, the eyes, the mouths, the slight facial expressions showed every emotion and made these Na’vi more realistic than anything ever created before. I recall watching other CGI created characters and there was always something just not right, even with the likes of Gollum from Lord of the Rings it was incredible but still it wasn’t perfect but Avatar has nailed it, they really look incredible.

As for the 3D, It’s so good you do actually forget that the 3D is there as it seems so natural and real what your watching and you forget those big blue aliens are CGI creations as their emotions and interactions with the actors and scenery is just perfect and seamless. A real credit to Cameron and his team, nothing has ever been this close to photo-realism before and it is a shear joy to experience 15 years of development coming together.

The 3D is at times subtly hinted on the screen showing depth and other times the screen is completely filled with layers of depth that really adds to the impact of this great movie. From the opening scene in a spaceships long and deep sleeping quarters that is slowly rotating in space which creates an intense sense of vertigo and jaw dropping effectiveness of what the 3D has to offer, and then there is a subtle shot of Jake landing in a gushing river and the bubbles floating around him under the water seem to have millions of rows of depth and as he comes to the surface the sense of the water flowing towards you is stunning in its beauty and realism. True 3D vision has definitely arrived and has never been so good. it’s truly sensational.

The sound and music partnered perfectly with the film and never seemed to take over from the films visual assault on your eyes . The score by James Horner was beautiful to hear and the sound fx brutal in the huge set piece scenes. The planet of Pandora came further to life with the sounds of it’s animals, it’s huge expansive setting with waterfalls and creaking forests and the dialect of it’s natives all further adding to belief that Pandora is a living breathing world.

The Cast

Sam Worthington and the entire cast are all fantastic and show a real commitment to their characters. Sam is showing why he is becoming an true A-List Hollywood star with a performance that stood out and with excellent strong supporting performances from Sigourney Weaver and the truly brilliant Stephen Lang adding something special to the overall film and with Lang especially providing a much needed villainous presence that gave everyone something to fear on top of the huge flying machines and weapons that invaded Pandora.

From the numerous interviews I’ve read and watched about Avatar you sense the entire cast are so proud of what they have made and all gave everything to James Cameron who definitely gave his all in making his vision come to life.

Overall

Yeah the plot wasn’t Oscar winning material but it had more than enough to make it a work and leave you wanting more of Avatar and it’s characters, and yeah the Na’vi do look a bit strange from the trailers and magazines before you see them on the big screen but they steal the show with their shocking realism and personalities that are brought to life by the actors and the motion capture which is awesome. The only fault I can remember was a strange ritual dance that is performed by the Na’vi which was the worst looking of the CGI effects but that is a minor part of what is a almost faultlessly enjoyable film.

Avatar is a genuine masterpiece, not because of the story or because of the stunning special fx but because they worked so perfectly together on screen in 3D to bring us something we have never seen before which isn’t said very often in the world of film. I can’t be more excited about the future and what can now be achieved but I’m also very aware of the utter rubbish this is going spawn from copy cat stories by studio executives trying to cash in on the guaranteed success of Avatar.

I would like to see a film without so much need for special effects using this new technology in the hands of Cameron, Spielberg, Jackson or Coen Brothers and see if this new 3D future can fit with a film Noir or suspense thriller. God, could you imagine Hitchcock with Cameron’s 3D cameras and what he would have made!?

I really can’t praise the film enough, I wasn’t one of the pre-release skeptics and was really hopeful of it working and I’m glad to see for me it did on every level. Go see this film and make sure you pay the extra pounds/dollars/yen/Euros etc to see it in 3D because it’s worth every penny and the only way to see Avatar.