The Fox marketing team asked a $237 million question in 2009
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How can we ensure that hordes of moviegoers flock to see a tentpole about beastly blue humanoids living in a distant land no one has ever heard of?
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Once advertising costs were taken into account, Avatar's budget reached nearly $400 million.
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Insiders estimate $500 million. The stakes were high for James Cameron and his backers, regardless of the exact numbers.
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Avatar's ticket sales weren't reliant on franchise recognition,
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like Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End or Sony's Spider-Man 3.
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There was a need for Fox to come up with a more inventive promotional strategy.
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This led to the creation of Avatar Day.
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In July 2009, while screening footage from the film for the first time at San Diego Comic-Con,
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Cameron announced that approximately 16 nonsequential minutes would be shown at Imax locations around the globe on August 21, four months before the film’s theatrical debut.
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Avatar's 3-D leaps were finally revealed after evasive hype about one of Hollywood's premier technophiles.
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There was no admission fee, so it was a brand-building exercise with unpredictable results.
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A full-tilt blockbuster publicity campaign was what nobody anticipated would follow.