INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT - AVATAR [film]

In the original script, Neytiri's name was Zuleika, and Jake Sully's name was Josh Sully.

A casting call was posted on the website of Mali Finn Casting in early December 2005 for the female lead. The casting call was erroneously reported to be for James Cameron's Battle Angel (2011). However, Battle Angel will be the second of the back-to-back Cameron projects with a likely 2013 release.

Michael Biehn was considered for the role of Miles Quaritch. He met with James Cameron three times and saw some of the 3D footage, but in the end it simply came down to the fact that Cameron didn't want people thinking it was Aliens (1986) all over again, as Sigourney Weaver had already been cast.

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 attempted to get this film made in 1999 as his immediate follow-up to Titanic (1997). However, at the time, the special effects he wanted for the movie ran the proposed budget up to $400 million. No studio would fund the film, and it was subsequently shelved for almost ten years.

The movie is 40% live action and 60% photo-realistic CGI. Motion capture technology was used for the CGI scenes.

Seeing the character of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) convinced James Cameron that CGI effects had progressed enough to make this film.

The film was shipped in two parts in the UK, first part was reels 1-5 and reels 6-10 came the following day. It was shipped under the codename "Redbird".

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 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 and the cast and crew spent their nights at a Four Seasons hotel.

As of December 2009, with an alleged budget of US $280,000,000 (estimated), this is one of the most expensive movies ever made.

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Deepan Vanitha