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[pic]"Avatar"
The creatures of 'Avatar' were 15 years in the making
By Alex Ben Block
Dec 10, 2009, 03:57 PM ET
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In 1994, director James Cameron and his friend Stan Winston -- who worked together on "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" -- became officers of the fledgling Digital Domain, a year-old special effects house based in Venice, Calif. That was the curious genesis of "Avatar."
"I figured the best way to drive the company," Cameron says, "was to make a movie that would push them hard."
The movie he came up with not only pushed everyone hard (though not Digital Domain, which wasn't ultimately part of the production); it also tested the limits of filmmaking. With a cost estimated anywhere from $200 million-$350 million, including research and development, it will finally be released Dec. 18.
It is an enormous risk for Fox, the company that has bankrolled it with help from Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Media. It is an even bigger risk for Cameron, whose reputation may sink or swim with this, his first feature since 1997's "Titanic." But risk was the last thing he thought of when the movie began to percolate in his mind.
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He wanted a picture as big as the epics of his youth, like "The Man Who Would Be King" or "Lawrence of Arabia," and one that dealt with a similar clash of cultures. "A person comes in contact with a different culture and has to make changes," Cameron explains. "He must change his perceptions, learn how to assimilate and prove himself within that new world."
He also wanted a film that would push movies to the next level, just as Cameron had done pushed boundaries in exploring the deepest oceans for documentaries, and in developing a new generation of 3D cameras, the Fusion system.
Cameron wrote a treatment to encapsulate his idea,