Avatar is a 2009 epic science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron. It features an ensemble cast including Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. It is the first installment in the Avatar film series. It is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon, in order to mine the valuable mineral unobtanium. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the existence of a local tribe of Na'vi, a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The title of the film refers to an "avatar", which is a genetically engineered Na'vi body remotely operated from the brain of a human, and which is used to interact with the Na'vi.
Development of Avatar began in 1994, when Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for the film. Filming was due to take place after the completion of Cameron's 1997 film Titanic, for a planned release in 1999; however, according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film. Work on the fictional constructed language of the Na'vi began in 2005, and Cameron began developing the screenplay and fictional universe in early 2006. Avatar was budgeted at $237 million, due to the groundbreaking array of new visual effects Cameron achieved in cooperation with Weta Digital. Some estimates put the cost at between $280 million and $310 million for production, and at $150 million for promotion. The film made extensive use of 3D computer graphics and new motion capture filming techniques, and reunited Cameron with his Titanic co-producer Jon Landau.
Avatar premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square theater in London on December 10, 2009, and was released in the United States on December 18 by 20th Century Fox. The film received positive reviews from critics, who praised its groundbreaking visual effects, though the plot received criticism for being derivative. The film broke several box office records, including becoming the highest-grossing film of all time from 2010 to 2019 and again from 2021 to 2026. It also became the first film to gross more than $2 billion, and was the best-selling video title of 2010 in the United States. Adjusted for inflation, Avatar grossed around $4 billion, making it the second-highest-grossing film, behind Gone with the Wind (1939).
Avatar received nine nominations at the 82nd Academy Awards, winning three awards, and received numerous other accolades. The success of the film led to an increase in popularity of 3D films, and to electronics manufacturers releasing 3D televisions. Avatar was followed by the sequels Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) and Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025), with two more sequels in development.
Plot
In 2154, Earth suffers from resource exhaustion and ecological collapse. The Resources Development Administration (RDA) mines the valuable mineral unobtanium on Pandora, a lush habitable moon in the Alpha Centauri star system. Pandora is inhabited by the Na'vi, a , blue-skinned, sapient humanoid species that live in harmony with nature.
To explore Pandora, human scientists control Na'vi-human hybrid bodies called "avatars". Each avatar is genetically matched with a human operator. Jake Sully, a paraplegic veteran of the United States Marines, is recruited as an operator after the death of his identical twin, who was training as an operator. The head of the Avatar Program, Dr. Grace Augustine, allows Jake to take the place of his twin, but considers him inadequate.
While Jake, Grace and Dr. Norm Spellman are in their avatars in the forest, Jake is attacked by wild animals. He flees deep into the wilderness, where he is rescued by a female Na'vi named Neytiri. Suspicious of Jake, she takes him to her clan, the Omaticaya. Mo'at, the clan's spiritual leader and the mother of Neytiri, orders her daughter to initiate Jake into their society.
Colonel Miles Quaritch, head of the RDA's security force, promises Jake that the company will restore the use of his legs if he provides information about the Na'vi and their gathering place, the giant Hometree, which sits atop a rich deposit of unobtanium. Jake and Neytiri fall in love as Jake is initiated into the clan, and they choose each other as mates. When Jake attempts to disable a bulldozer threatening a sacred Na'vi site, RDA administrator Parker Selfridge orders the destruction of Hometree.
Grace explains to Selfridge that destroying Hometree would damage the biological neural network that connects all Pandoran life, which prompts Selfridge to reluctantly give Jake and Grace one hour to convince the Na'vi to evacuate. Jake confesses to the Na'vi that he was a spy for the RDA, which prompts the clan to take him and Grace captive. Quaritch's soldiers destroy Hometree and kill many Na'vi, including Eytukan, who is the clan chief and Neytiri's father. Mo'at frees Jake and Grace, but they are detached from their avatars and imprisoned by Quaritch's forces. Trudy Chacón, a pilot who is disgusted by Quaritch's brutality, rescues Jake, Grace, and Norm. During the escape, Grace is shot and fatally wounded.
Jake regains the trust of the Na'vi by connecting his mind to the Toruk, a dragon-like creature feared and revered by the clan. Supported by Neytiri and the new chief Tsu'tey, Jake unites the Omaticaya, and tells them to gather other Na'vi clans to fight the RDA as it prepares to assault the Tree of Souls. Before the battle, Jake prays to the Na'vi mother goddess Eywa through a neural connection with the Tree of Souls.
The Na'vi and their human allies lose many fighters during the battle, including Tsu'tey and Trudy. The tide turns when wild animals unexpectedly join the fight and overwhelm the RDA forces; Neytiri interprets this occurrence as Eywa answering Jake's prayer. Quaritch, in an Amplified Mobility Platform suit, breaks open the avatar link unit containing Jake's human body, exposing it to Pandora's poisonous atmosphere. As Quaritch prepares to kill Jake, he is slain by Neytiri; she then saves Jake from suffocation.
In the aftermath of the war, the RDA is expelled from Pandora. Some humans are allowed to remain, including Jake and Norm. With the help of the Tree of Souls, Neytiri, and Mo'at, Jake is permanently transferred into his avatar.
Cast
Sam Worthington as Jake Sully: A disabled former US Marine who joins the Avatar Program to replace his dead twin brother. Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri: A fierce Na'vi warrior. She teaches Jake about the Na'vi culture and eventually falls in love with him. Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch: The commander of the RDA security forces. Michelle Rodriguez as Captain Trudy Chacón: A combat pilot assigned to support the Avatar Program who is sympathetic to the Na'vi. Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge: The corporate administrator of the RDA mining operation. Joel David Moore as Dr. Norm Spellman: A "xenoanthropologist" who studies plant and animal life as part of the Avatar Program. CCH Pounder as Mo'at: The Omaticaya's spiritual leader, Neytiri's mother, and Eytukan's wife. Wes Studi as Eytukan: The chief of the Omatikaya clan, Mo'at's husband, and Neytiri's father. Laz Alonso as Tsu'tey: The finest warrior of the Omaticaya, he is heir to the chieftainship of the tribe. Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine: An exobiologist and head of the Avatar Program. Dileep Rao as Dr. Max Patel: A scientist who works in the Avatar Program and comes to support Jake's rebellion against the RDA. Matt Gerald as Corporal Lyle Wainfleet: An RDA soldier and Quaritch's right-hand man.
Alicia Vela-Bailey appears in three uncredited roles: Ikeyni, the leader of the Tayrangi clan; Saeyla, a young Na'vi hunter; and a woman who is harassed in a bar. Vela-Bailey also served as Saldaña's stunt double.
Production Development
In 1994, Avatar director James Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for the film, drawing inspiration from science fiction books he read in his childhood, as well as from adventure novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard. He was also influenced by a dream he had when he was 19 years old, which included a bioluminescent forest with fiber-optic trees, fan lizards, and purple moss that lit up when stepped on. In August 1996, Cameron announced that after completing Titanic, he would direct Avatar, a science-fiction film that would feature computer-generated characters. The visual effects studio Digital Domain joined the project, which was supposed to begin production in mid-1997 for a 1999 release. However, Cameron felt that available technology had not caught up with his vision for the film. He put Avatar on hold for several years, and focused on refining the necessary technology and making documentaries. Eventually, the technological advances used in the creation of computer-generated characters such as Gollum (2002), King Kong (2005), and Davy Jones (2006) helped convince Cameron that he could realize his vision for Avatar.
20th Century Fox had committed to produce Avatar, but the studio was afraid of cost overruns and delays, which had plagued Cameron's previous film, Titanic. Fox fronted $10 million to Cameron to create a proof of concept clip for Avatar, which he showed to executives in October 2005. According to Cameron, the executives were excited about the clip, but they still wanted a shorter script and a smaller budget for the film than what Cameron had proposed. In response to these concerns, Cameron combined several characters in the screenplay. He also offered to cut his salary in half, and said he would take a lower percentage of the film's revenues if it was a commercial failure. Fox was still unconvinced, and in mid-2006 decisively declined to produce the film, according to Cameron.
Cameron then approached Walt Disney Studios, showing his Avatar clip to Disney CEO Bob Iger, then-studio chairman Dick Cook, and Alan Bergman. However, when Disney attempted to take over the project, Fox exercised its right of first refusal and committed to making Avatar in October 2006. Ingenious Media agreed to back the film, reducing Fox's financial exposure to less than half of the film's official $237 million budget. Fox planned to spend $150 million on marketing and make use of about $30 million in tax credits to further lessen the financial impact on the studio and its financiers. After Fox accepted Avatar, one skeptical executive told Cameron, "I don't know if we're crazier for letting you do this, or if you're crazier for thinking you can do this ..."
Design
Long before Cameron started work on Avatar, his mother told him about a dream she had which featured a blue-skinned woman 12 feet (4 m) tall. Cameron liked the image and created a race of tall, beautiful blue people with golden eyes for his first screenplay, which was written in 1976 or 1977 and never produced. He created some paintings of these people, and when he was developing Avatar he drew upon this early work as inspiration for the Na'vi. In later interviews, Cameron said another reason for making the Na'vi blue was that it connects them to Hindu deities.
Cameron recruited the fantasy illustrator Wayne Barlowe and the concept artist Jordu Schell to help him design the Na'vi. The designers used paintings and physical sculptures because Cameron felt that 3D renderings were not capturing his vision. Paul Frommer, a linguist at USC, was recruited to create a language for the Na'vi. The language has a lexicon of about 1000 words, with about 30 contributed by Cameron. Its phonemes include ejective consonants similar to those found in Amharic.