Premise:
The story’s protagonist, Jake Sully, is a former Marine who was wounded and paralyzed from the waist down in combat on Earth. Jake is selected to participate in the Avatar program, which will give him a healthy body. Jake travels to Pandora, a lush rainforest-covered extraterrestrial moon filled with incredible life forms – some beautiful, many terrifying. Pandora is also home to the Na’vi, a sentient humanoid race that humans consider primitive, but are actually more evolutionarily advanced than humans. Standing three meters tall, with tails and sparkling blue skin, the Na’vi live in harmony with their unspoiled world. As humans encroach deeper into Pandora's forests in search of valuable minerals, the Na’vi unleash their formidable warrior abilities to defend their threatened existence.
Jake has unwittingly been recruited to become part of this encroachment. Since humans are unable to breathe the air on Pandora, they have created genetically-bred human-Na’vi hybrids known as Avatars. The Avatars are living, breathing bodies that are controlled by a human 'driver' through a technology that links the driver’s mind to their Avatar body. On Pandora, through his Avatar body, Jake can be whole once again. Sent deep into Pandora's jungles as a scout for the soldiers that will follow, Jake encounters many of Pandora's beauties and dangers. There he meets a young Na’vi female, Neytiri, whose beauty is matched by her ferocity in battle.
Over time, Jake integrates himself into Neytiri's clan, and begins to fall in love with her. As a result, Jake finds himself caught between the military-industrial forces of Earth, and the Na’vi – forcing him to choose sides in an epic battle that will decide the fate of an entire world.
SourceStarring:
Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Peter Mensah, Laz Alonso, Wes Studi, Stephen Lang, Matt Gerald
SourceRumors:
1. Avatar Running Time is Over Two and a Half HoursEditor’s (Peter Sciretta) Note: Brendon filed this report yesterday, but I wasn’t initially willing to run it based on an unconfirmed source on a Twitter account. But since that time, /Film’s Russ Fischer was able to follow-up with Avatar producer John Landau, who made an appearance at the Ubisoft booth during the E3 video game convention. Fischer asked about Avatar’s running time, and Landau confirmed that it is “definitely over two and a half hours.”
The reason why I had my doubts is that the film is being released theatrically in 2D, Digital 3D and IMAX 3D, but the latter format does not allow for three-hour films. I contacted IMAX, and they confirmed that the longest a non-digital 3D presentation could run is 160 minutes, and that is with two separate film reels, one for each eye. I asked IMAX if they would be forced to cut down Avatar if the finished film ran 3 hours in length, and they said they’d get back to me — which of course, they never did. When IMAX first began screening theatrical upconversions, the maxium running time was shorter, and I do recall one of the Harry Potter films being shortened a few minutes of the IMAX presentation. So it is possible that the same thing might have to be done for Avatar.
You can read Brendon’s original report, which claims a finished running time of 189 minutes (or three hours and nind minutes) after the jump.
Brendon’s Report begins:
According to the threadmeisters at Film Crew T-Shirts, the running time of James Cameron’s Avatar is going to be… drum roll please… 189 minutes. How would they know? Well, I assume they’ve fostered some strong relationships with members of, quite obviously, film crews, and furthermore that one of these folks is a crew member on Avatar. Far from impossible.
Everything I know about Avatar suggests a 189 minute run time will still require a brisk pace and some tight editing to get all of the different narrative threads spun out neatly. Titanic ran over 5 minutes longer and, relatively speaking, that was a straightforward story that took far less exposition just to get the premise clear in people’s minds.
Interestingly, James Cameron has had a few bouts of crew friction that flared up into Blade Runner style T-shirt wars. On Terminator 2, the crew made shirts that said “”You Can’t Scare Me - I Work For Jim Cameron.”
More recently, Sam Worthington raffled off an Avatar t-shirt that gave us the first definite look at artwork from within the production. It showed a silhouette of a Na’vi character and contained the film’s logotype, which we’ve now seen in all subsequent promotions.
I don’t think Cameron would be the kind of guy to buckle and let anything other than his director’s cut, no matter how long it is, be the theatrical release. I can’t imagine he’ll be accepting a run time ceiling on his final cut contract. Sure, Aliens was released in a cut down version, and I’m still not entirely clear on whether the longer Terminator 2 was Cameron’s preferred version or not, but those were both released before he was made King of the World.
Many of the recent posts on the Film Crew T-Shirts Twitter feed have been about Date Night with Steve Carell and Tina Fey, on the set of which they witnessed some car stunts, and GI Joe, about which they revealed nothing, gagged by an NDA. While they retain their anonymity they stand a very good chance of digging up some really good scoopage.
Source2. "Avatar" site crashes as fans seek ticketsLOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The official "Avatar" Web site crashed for several hours on Monday as moviegoers rushed to secure free seats to see the 16 minutes of 3D preview footage that will be shown at 104 Imax theaters around the country on Friday evening.
Ticket ordering was scheduled to begin online at noon PDT, but at about 11:55 a.m., the site started experiencing difficulties. About 17,000 of the 68,000 available tickets were distributed before the heavy traffic forced the site down for several hours.
"Due to the overwhelming response for tickets to the 'Avatar' event on 8/21, our servers have crashed. We will update you as soon as possible," ticket seekers were advised by "Avatar's" Twitter site.
By late afternoon, avatarmovie.com was again up and running, taking five orders every second. Locations in New York and Los Angeles sold out almost immediately.
Given that "Avatar," James Cameron's first narrative feature since 1997's "Titanic," promises a display of cutting-edge technology, the site snafu was something of an embarrassment.
At the same time, it had to be good news for 20th Century Fox, which is facing the challenge of creating awareness for a movie that isn't based on a pre-existing brand, book or film. The sci-fi adventure -- with a budget the studio has put at $237 million -- opens in the U.S. on December 18 and worldwide that same week.
Fox and Cameron have been slowly unveiling footage from the film. first at the CineExpo convention in Amsterdam in June and then at last month's Comic-Con. But Friday will be the first chance for many moviegoers to see for themselves scenes in which Australian actor Sam Worthington, playing a paralyzed Marine who travels to the planet of Pandora, finds new life as an avatar -- a blue-skinned, 10-foot tall, half-human, half-alien hybrid.
"I think to say that there is already a lot of interest in the movie is a pretty good understatement. Obviously, it blew out all the servers," said Greg Foster, Imax's chairman and president of filmed entertainment. "It's a pretty big statement about the curiosity and interest in the whole thing."
The participating Imax theaters, in between regularly scheduled screenings of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," will offer two screenings Friday of the "Avatar" footage, which will include a 30-second introduction by Cameron in which he sets up the clips. Foster said there are no plans to offer more screenings.
Source3. Cameron's Avatar Starts Filming in AprilAcademy Award®-winning filmmaker James Cameron begins principal photography on Avatar - his first feature directorial effort since Titanic - in April 2007 for a summer 2009 release, it was announced today by Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman.
Utilizing a blend of live-action photography and new virtual photorealistic production techniques invented by Cameron's team, Avatar will offer audiences a unique cinematic experience. Avatar will be filmed in 3D for release in the new digital 3D format. With the continued roll-out of digital projection systems, the studio and filmmakers anticipate that digital 3D theaters will be widespread by the film's summer 2009 release.
For Avatar, Cameron will use revolutionary image-based performance capture techniques, and a real-time virtual camera system, to create new CG worlds and blend them with dramatic performances and live action in ways never before possible.
Avatar is written by Cameron from an idea he nurtured for over a decade, while working on the technology necessary to realize its wholly imagined world. A return to the action adventure sci-fi genre that made him famous, Avatar is also an emotional journey of redemption and revolution. It is the story of a wounded ex-marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival. It thus again combines the elements of massive spectacle and intimate character that made Titanic the highest grossing film of all time; a title it still holds by over three quarters of a billion dollars.
Just as he did with the then little known Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron wanted a new face to portray the lead, Jake Sully. Having searched around the world and screen tested a number of emerging young actors, Cameron has chosen the young Australian Sam Worthington, a rising star who has been recognized by The Australian Film Institute and The Film Critics Circle of Australia, in his homeland from such work as Somersault and Dirty Deeds. Zoe Saldana (The Terminal, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl) will portray the local woman Jake first betrays, then loves. Both actors have signed on for possible future installments as well, as Avatar is conceived as a potential franchise. Other casting will be announced shortly.
Said Cameron, "For me, as a lifelong fan of science fiction and action, 'Avatar' is a dream project. We're creating an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language. The story is both epic and emotional. The two things that make this film even possible are pioneering advances in CG effects and performance capture, as well as my 22 year relationship with Fox, since only with great trust can you operate so close to the cutting edge. I plan to honor that relationship by bringing them a winner. And I have the team to do it, the best team of artists and technicians I've ever been privileged to work with. This one's going to be a grand adventure."
"Every year, our business makes hundreds of films, most of which come and go. But a Jim Cameron film is different," said Tom Rothman and Jim Gianopulos. "Jim's movies raise the bar, both in storytelling and use of technology. 'Avatar' will do so again. The world he has created is breathtaking and the action breathless. It will take two more years, but in the summer of 2009, 'Avatar' will be a seismic change in the movie going experience."
The film's new image-based process of facial performance capture will get all the subtle nuances of the actors' performances. The virtual camera system will allow Cameron to work intimately with the cast while seeing in real-time, as each scene evolves, the computer generated worlds and characters. This revolutionary approach allows Cameron to direct scenes with CG characters and environments exactly as he would on a live action set.
The edited performances and scenes, incorporating Cameron's hands-on camera moves, will be turned over to Peter Jackson's Oscar-winning visual effects house Weta Digital ("The Lord of the Rings" trilogy). Weta's artists will incorporate new intuitive CGI technologies to transform the environments and characters into photorealistic 3D imagery that will transport the audience into the alien world rich with imaginative vistas, creatures and characters.
Avatar is produced by Cameron and Jon Landau for Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment. Principal photography will take place in and around Los Angeles, and in New Zealand. Live action will be shot using the proprietary FUSION digital 3D camera system developed by Cameron and Vince Pace.
Avatar is the latest creative partnership between Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox, one of the most successful filmmaker-studio alliances in motion picture history. Cameron and Fox first joined forces in 1985 for Aliens, which became a sci fi classic. Next came The Abyss, which revolutionized visual effects technology; and True Lies, a blockbuster starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 1996, Fox greenlighted Cameron's Titanic, which became the most successful film in history, and won a record-breaking eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Source
![You Will Be Forever [ web magazine ]](http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger2/3364/379/1600/z/664092/gse_multipart4006.jpg){kind=small}
Posts
