Hollywood Case Study- Avatar

Pre Production and Production

• Avatar was written by James Cameron in 1999. The early idea's for the script started in 1994 and was a 80 page scipt which Cameron didn't want to produce until "technology moved on". He had a vision for the film and wanted to look absoutly perfect, and the effects to fit the story of the film.
• The chacters in the film are simple and easy for the audience to understand. The film starts with the story of the main charater Jake Sully and the audience finds out how he got in the wheel chair and his story on how he is in space and is alowed to be in the Avata programme. The audience can understand the characters easily and can get on the same level as them.
• The estimamted budget for Avatar was around $237,000,000 and at the box office has grossed $595,752,416. Actors were paid an estimated at around $50,000,000. James Cameron made around $8 Million. He used most of the moeny he was paid to make the film so didn't have such a high income as some actors did.
• 5 Production companies were involved but the main distributor was Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. The other companies were Dune Entertainment, Giant Studios, Ingenious Film Partners and Lightstorm Entertainment.
• It was a mixture of generes including Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi and romance. The audeiene than is not to small and is almost a film for everyone, there is not age range.
• Avatar was starting to be devloped in early 2006, then filming with the actors started in 2007 and lasted for around 2 years. Filming eneded in early 2009 and the film was released at the end.
• The film was mostly animation, but the actors filmed most scenes in frnot of a green screen and then there action and facil expression was monited and then the action were copied on screen so the characters were more life like and the expressions. So most of the fiml wasn't done at a fiml set but 3D animation.
• For the film is all 3D animation there is alot of CGI effects. In the last 30 minuets of the film a massive fight breaks out which has alot of explosions and fire, so there is alot of CGI in the last few scenes. The use of this in the film is that is makes the auddience more excited and feels more part of the action and that the audience member watching can actaully feel like they are there.
• The music score in the film is composed by James Horner (The same composer as The Titanic score) The music in the film fits perfectly and moves the audience with the scene. The main theme for the film is a song called "I See You" which is performed by Leona Lewis. An example of a popular music artist will help draw an audience to the film.

Distribution

• The main distrubutior for Avatar was 20th Century Fox, but it was diffrent in some other countries for example in Finland the disribution company was FS Film Oy.
• The total so far for adversising and marketing the film is estimated at around $100 million.
• The film has released over 4 diffrent posters, and screen shots from the film. 3 trailers have been released and the film has it's own website. There is also game toy tage in which you hold up to your computer's webcam and than readsn what charcter you have got and then you are able to enter that world in the online video game.
• The marketing campagin started at the end of November until the release date in December.
• As well as clothes and toy merchandise, there was also a deal with McDonalds where there was toys with the Happy Meals for children and Avatar was used to advertise new Free Wi-Fi connection at McDonalds.
• The film is being shown in over 13 countires.

Exhibition

• The film was released on December 16th and is still being shown regulary 3 months afterwards. The film was released 2 week before it original release date.
• Avartar was released in over 600 screens in opening weekend in America.
• In the opening weekend the film took over $77,000,000 in the US only.
• The fiml is in cinemas for about 4 months.
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