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Some insiders placed the price tag closer to$500 million.
Whatever the exact numbers, James Cameron and his backers had a lot at stake.
Fox needed a more inventive promotional strategy.
Thus something calledAvatarDay was born.
Its much more 360 now than it was then.
But this was an entirely unique sensory experience.
It was generations beyond anything the audience had ever seen, but you couldnt show that on television.
We needed to show it in the format in which it was intended.
From todays vantage point, this gambit doesnt seem quite so novel.
Because this rejuvenated technology wasnaivelythought to be the future of cinema (rememberSaw 3D?
), both companies treatedAvatarDay as a major awareness-raising activation.
If all went well, executives hoped, more theaters would be inspired to install 3-D configurations.
They were right to a degree.
(Fox hoped for hundreds more than they actually got,per the New YorkTimes.)
Naturally,AvatarDay didnt end with Imax.
A video-game trailer and Mattel action-figure set debuted.
In subsequent months, multimillion-dollar promotional tie-ins with McDonalds, Coke, LG, and Panasonic manufactured louder momentum.
But corporate merchandising was nothing new in Hollywood.
As Fox and Imax had hoped, enoughAvatarDay spectators walked away with heightened curiosity.
A 24-year-old named Anthony Moralestoldthe Tampa BayTimes, It was unlike anything Ive ever seen.
I dont have the words for it.
But between August and December, he realized he wasnt actually all that compelled by what hed watched.
To this day, he has still never seenAvatar.
I came away a bit nonplussed about it.
It felt like a computer game to me.
Everyone said they were glad to have made the trek to see it, though.
Apathetic responses were, and possibly remain,Avatars hurdle.
We knew it was risky, Rothman says ofAvatarDay.
But the whole project was risky.
We believed we had the goods, and we believed in Jim Cameron.
