James Cameron’s Avatar became an unprecedented global success when it was released at the end of 2009, going on to earn more than two and a half billion dollars from its 0m. budget. To be able to take ten times your budget when you’re starting off with that kind of money is utterly insane by any standards.
Since its release, it’s continued to earn ever more money with more than one DVD/Blu-Ray releases, and a final 3D Blu-Ray release is still on the cards somewhere down the line.
THR are now reporting that the Avatar brand – because that really is what it’s become – is now developing even further afield, moving into theme park territory. The first Avatar-themed “land” will be built at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and construction is expected to have begun by 2013.
“The first Avatar attraction will be inside the Animal Kingdom park. Disney said this was chosen because “with its emphasis on living in harmony with nature, Animal Kingdom is a natural fit for the Avatar stories, which share the same philosophy.””
Cameron and his producing partner Jon Landau will be on board as creative consultants and will be working alongside Walt Disney Imagineering and the famous Disney Imagineers to design the Avatar attractions, with plans to develop similar projects in the several other Disney parks across the globe.
““Avatar created a world which audiences can discover again and again and now, through this incredible partnership with Disney, we’ll be able to bring Pandora to life like never before. With two new Avatar films currently in development, we’ll have even more locations, characters and stories to explore,” said James Cameron. “I’m chomping at the bit to start work with Disney’s legendary Imagineers to bring our Avatar universe to life. Our goal is to go beyond current boundaries of technical innovation and experiential storytelling, and give park goers the chance to see, hear, and touch the world of Avatar with an unprecedented sense of reality.””
And of course, Cameron has already announced that he has two further Avatar films in the works, with release dates currently scheduled for December 2014 and 2015, which will undoubtedly do wonders for ticket sales if the attractions can be finished in time – and Disney will likely make sure that they are. Disney’s theme parks are visited by millions upon millions of people every year, and they’ll soon be given the chance to go into the world of Pandora and see, hear, and feel it like never before.
When Walt Disney was creating Disneyland back in the 1950s, he started a TV show that ran simultaneously with the park’s construction, and millions of Americans invited Disney into their homes on a weekly basis to see how the development was going. When it finally came time to open the park, for those first visitors, it was precisely like seeing the things from their television screens back home in real life with their very own eyes.
If Cameron, Landau, and Disney’s Imagineers can pull this off well, and there’s no reason to suggest they can’t, future visitors to the park should be able to experience the very same thing as those first visitors more than fifty years ago. Pandora is an incredibly beautiful world in the Avatar films, and even though I’m not sure I’ll ever go myself, I can imagine seeing it in “reality” (for you could argue the extent to which Disney theme parks are “real”) would truly be something.
