Avatar is a 2009 movie written and directed by James Cameron, starring Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez. With its budget of $300,000,000, it was expected to be one of the biggest blockbusters of the year, and is filmed entirely in 3D. The movie premiered on December 16, and has grossed over $250,000,000 in the first four days. The movie was accompanied by a game of the same name by Ubisoft, which was released earlier in November 2009.

The movie was released in both DVD and Blue-ray versions on March 18, 2010. Both versions contained the theatrical version of the feature movie only. A more elaborate version, including special features, menus etc is expected to be released in November, 2010.http://www.andyatthemovies.com/2010/03/avatar-on-blu-ray-and-dvd-april-22/

On February 16, 2010, a producer of the film told MTV of Cameron's plans to write a book that would serve as a prequel to the film. "Jim wants to write a novel that is a big, epic story that would fill in a lot of things... it would be something that would lead up to telling the story of the movie."http://www.newser.com/story/81020/cameron-plans-avatar-prequel.html?utm_source=lunchbox&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20100216

The film was nominated for 8 Oscars at the 82nd Academy Awards. On March 7, 2010 Avatar won the Oscar for Best Art Direction as well as Best Cinematography.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a former marine, but now paralyzed from the waist down. He is offered the opportunity to take part in the Avatar project, which will provide him with a new healthy body. For this, he travels to a foreign planet, called Pandora and infiltrates the Pandoran people using an avatar body. During this time, he falls in love with the people, their way of life and the beautiful Neytiri (Zoe Saldara).

Avatar was nominated for 8 different Academy Awards. It won the following categories:

• Art Direction — Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg and Kim Sinclair
• Cinematography — Mauro Fiore
• Visual Effects — Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andy Jones

Avatar was nominated for 4 different Golden Globe Awards. It won the following categories:

• Best Director of a Motion Picture - James Cameron
• Best Motion Picture - Dramahttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/awards

• Sam Worthington...Jake Sully
• Zoe Saldana...Neytiri
• Sigourney Weaver...Dr. Grace Augustine
• Michelle Rodriguez...Trudy Chacon
• Giovanni Ribisi...Selfridge
• Joel David Moore...Norm Spellman
• CCH Pounder...Moha
• Stephen Lang...Quaritch
• Dileep Rao...Dr. Max Patel
• Matt Gerald...Lyle Wainfleet

On December 16, 2009, Avatar, the highly anticipated big budget movie by director James Cameron, had its US premiere in Hollywood, California. The traditional red carpet had been replaced by a blue one, to fit the occasion, honoring the film's blue race of Na'vi aliens.http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/gossip/2009/12/avatar-premiere-blue-red-carpet-arrivals.html

Among the celebrities were Avatar cast members Sam Worthington and girlfriend Natalie Mark, His Na'vi counterpart Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Giovanni Ribisi, who plays Parker Selfridge.http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/gossip/2009/12/avatar-premiere-blue-red-carpet-arrivals.html

Of course director James Cameron and his wife Suzy Amis were present, just as music video director Jake Nava appeared on the carpet. Leona Lewis, who sang the movie's theme song "I See You" took a break from promoting her new album "Echo" to make an appearance on the blue carpet. Also showing up was fellow director Bryan Singer, who reportedly uses the Avatar technology on the movie he is currently directing, Jack the Giant Killer.http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/gossip/2009/12/avatar-premiere-blue-red-carpet-arrivals.html

On October 23, 2009, a 3.5 minute trailer premiered in theaters, and was available online after October 29, 2009.http://www.firstshowing.net/2009/10/19/new-epic-trailer-for-james-camerons-avatar-in-theaters-friday/

After the release of the first trailers, some public reactions were not favorable. Some of the main criticisms were that the blue people reminded them of Jar Jar Blinks, there was some confusion over the name of the movie and the use of papyrus seemed cheap. The reactions to a longer 15 minute preview were more favorable.http://blogcritics.org/video/article/james-camerons-avatar-teaser-disappoints/

August 21, 2009 was called Avatar Day, on that day all IMAX theaters showed 15 minutes of footage of Avatar free of charge. http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7221:details-of-san-diego-comic-con-avatar-footage-arrives&catid=52:conventions&Itemid=171

One of the first to show an "interactive" movie trailer, it was released via iTunes on August 20, 2009. This trailer instantly became the most-viewed trailer ever on Apple.com with over four million downloads in the first 24 hours.http://www.facebook.com/officialavatarmovie?v=app_2347471856&viewas=1036937674&ref=tshttp://www.avatarmovie.com/air/

Problems at German Screenings

A German pre-release screening at about 100 locations failed on December 17, 2009 because of DRM decryption problems. The movie, which was digitally distributed on on hard disks containing over 150 gigabytes of aes128-encrypted data, failed to decrypt properly, resulting in the German cinemas to not be able to show the 3D version of the movie. At least one location showed the 2D version instead. That version was available, as it had been distributed on traditional analog reels.http://torrentfreak.com/drm-fiasco-ruins-james-camerons-avatar-3d-preview-091217/<ref><ref>http://tweakers.net/nieuws/64403/kopieerbeveiliging-zorgt-voor-problemen-bij-duitse-avatar-voorpremiere.html

According to movie review collection site rottentomatoes.com, Avatar has an average 82% "Fresh" rating, summarizing 252 ratings, which gave an average score of 7.4/10, as of February 10, 2010. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/avatar/

Even though there were serious doubts whether Avatar would become a success, it premiered with a revenue of $77,025,481in its first weekend domestically, and $164,545,565 globally, totaling to a worldwide estimated revenue of $241,571,046.http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=avatar.htm

It continued its strong performance in the week after, even tough it was briefly surpassed on Wednesday by Alvin and the Chipmunks The Squequelhttp://www.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/?sortdate=2009-12-23&p=.htm
However, it regained its first position again the day after, and remained there nearly constantly, until February 5, 2010. Avatar also ranked #1 for seven consecutive weekends, only to be surpassed by Dear John in the weekend of February 5- 6.

As of February 10, 2010 Avatar grossed $2,211,520,172 worldwide, making it the highest grossing movie of all time.http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=avatar.htmhttp://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=avatar.htm