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In early December 2005, a casting call for the female lead was posted on the website of Mali Finn Casting. It erroneously identified the movie as James Cameron's Battle Angel (2011).
Michael Biehn was considered for the role of Col. Quaritch. Cameron rejected him because he'd already cast Sigourney Weaver, and he didn't want people to think it was Aliens (1986) all over again.
Sigourney Weaver plays a James Cameron persona for her character in this film. Sigourney stated in an interview, "I teased him because to me I'm playing Jim Cameron in the movie as this kind of brilliant, approach-driven, idealistic perfectionist. But that same somebody has a great heart underneath. So I have to say I was always kind of channeling him."
James Cameron originally planned to have the film completed for release in 1999. At the time, the special effects he wanted increased the budget to $400 million. No studio would fund the film, and it was shelved for almost 10 years.
The movie is 40% live action and 60% photo-realistic CGI. A lot of motion capture technology was used for the CGI scenes.
James Cameron (I)' was convinced that CGI effects had progressed enough to make this film when he saw Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002).
Promotional items were shipped to cinemas under the name "Project 880".
In the UK, the film was shipped in two parts, under the code name "Redbird". Reels 1-5 were delivered first; 6-10 came the following day.
To help the actors prepare for their roles, director James Cameron took the cast and crew to Hawaii, where they spent their days trekking through the forests and jungles and living like tribes (building campfires, eating fish, etc), in order to get a better sense of what it would be like to live and move around in the jungle on Pandora, since there would not be any actual jungle sets to aid and guide the actors and crew. Zoe Saldana even dressed up as a warrior during these journeys, complete with an alien tail symbolic of the one her character has in the movie. These hikes were only done during the daytime, though; The cast and crew spent their nights at a Four Seasons hotel.
One of the most expensive movies ever made (as of December 2009), with an estimated budget of US $280,000,000.
Sam Worthington appeared in Terminator Salvation (2009), the fourth Terminator movie. His appearance in this non-Terminator movie is notable as James Cameron directed The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), T2 3-D: Battle Across Time (1996) as well has having being a writer (creator of characters) on other Terminator franchise video-games and TV episodes.
The first time Sigourney Weaver has appeared in a James Cameron film since Aliens (1986).
Avatars have eyebrows and five fingers and toes on their hands and feet, whereas the Na'vi only have four fingers and no eyebrows. The Avatars are also broader in the chest and arms, appearing more 'muscular'.
In much of the movie, Sigourney Weaver's avatar wears a Stanford tank top. Weaver attended Stanford in the early 1970s.
The spiral-shaped, retracting creatures Jake encounters early in the film are giant versions of Christmas Tree Worms, a marine invertebrate commonly kept in reef aquariums.
The Na'vi language was created entirely from scratch by linguist Paul R. Frommer. James Cameron hired him to construct a language that the actors could pronounce easily, but did not resemble any single human language. Frommer created about 1000 words.
Though he is not credited in the film, several locations look very similar to paintings by English surrealist Roger Dean, most notably his works "Floating Islands" and "Arches".
In the Thai version, Jake Sully is a "Navi" who becomes a "Na'vi". The Thai word for Marine is "Na-vig-ga-yo-tin", but the translator shortened it to make the voice-over sync.
The year is never stated, but the video log shows that the year is 2154.
The biggest opening weekend gross in the USA for an original (non-sequel) movie with over $77 million, record previously held by The Incredibles (2004).
The second James Cameron film not to feature Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein or Arnold Schwarzenegger. The other is Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981).
The actors playing the Na'vi had cameras attached to their head so that they filmed close-ups of their faces. Dots painted on their faces allowed motion-capture software to record their facial expressions, providing a 'framework' from which the CG artists worked.
"Unobtainium" is a humorous term used mainly in the aerospace industry. It describes a material that is perfect for an application, but does not exist, is extremely expensive, or violates the laws of physics. Its chemical symbol is Uo.
Director Trademark: [James Cameron] [feet] Close-up of Jake's feet when he moves them around in the soil; close-up of Col. Quaritch's feet in his first scene.
In Korean, "Na'vi" is spelled like "nabi", the Korean word for "butterfly."
When Sully reassures Mo'at (the shaman) that he is "empty", it may be a reference to his status as a US Marine. The term "jarhead" is applied to Marines partly to imply that their heads are empty. The connotation is mentioned in Jarhead (2005)
The second time WETA and ILM have worked on the same movie. Their first collaboration was Eragon (2006).
The first (and only, as of 2010) science fiction feature film by James Cameron that does not involve or mention nuclear weapons.
The fifth movie to break the US $1 billion mark at the box-office.
When Jake Sully is ready to choose a woman, Neytiri tells him about the women in the tribe, starting with "Ninat is a great singer". One of Israel's leading pop singers is called Ninet.
Colonel Quaritch mentions that being on Pandora made him feel "like a shave-tail Looie." "Shave tail" was a term originally used in the 19th century among U.S. cavalry regiments. Newly assigned cavalry troopers were given horses with a shaved tail, to let other troopers know that the rider was dangerously inexperienced, and should be given extra room to maneuver during training. "Looie" is a nickname for lieutenant, the lowest ranking, and least experienced, rank among U.S. Marine Corps officers.
Matt Damon and Jake Gyllenhaal were the studio's first choice to play Jake Sully, but James Cameron decided to cast an unknown, Sam Worthington, in the lead role.
James Cameron's first directorial feature film since Titanic (1997).
In the scene where Jake Sully is in prison, his back is to the camera and you can see the back of his wheelchair. The brand of wheelchair he is in is "Grunt," which is another term for a Marine infantryman.
Each frame (1/24 of a second) of the CGI scenes took an average of 47 hours to complete.( 47 stunden Arbeit für 0,041 sekunde Film... Ay Karamba...
The film reached the $500 million dollar mark in 32 days, beating The Dark Knight (2008)'s previous record of 45 days. James Cameron's previous film, Titanic (1997), took 98 days to reach the $500 million dollar mark.
"Avatar" is Sanskrit for "incarnation." It is used extensively in Hindu scriptures to refer to human incarnations of God.
According to 'James Cameron, (I)' the Na'vi are blue are to create a conceptual parallel with traditional Hindu depictions of God (e.g., in the forms of Vishnu, Shiva, Rama, Krishna, etc.), but also because "I just like the color blue."
"Ey'wa", the deity of the Na'vi people, is a backwards pronunciation of "Yahweh", the God of the Hebrews. Both names are based on the sound of breathing; the idea being that God is the breath of life.
Jake Sully's initials are the same as those of John Smith, the British explorer who fell in love with Pocahontas.
On January 26th, 2010 this film was announced as the highest grossing film of all time with a worldwide gross of $1,858,866,889. The previous record holder was Titanic (1997) and held the record for over twelve years with a worldwide gross of $1,843,201,268.
