Fox Announces How to Attend “Avatar Day”

While at Comic Con last month, James Cameron made the announcement that he would be presenting 16 minutes of footage for his latest epic, ‘Avatar,’ in theaters on August 21st.  Unprecedantly, Cameron said that this footage would be viewed to the public in movie theaters across America for free.  However, a question arose as to how Cameron and 20th Century Fox would be pulling this off.

Here’s how.

According to an article in the LA Times, starting Monday (August 17th), Fox will be launching on offer on the film’s website.  Tickets will be given away through the website (www.avatarmovie.com) on a first-come, first-serve basis starting at noon PST.  Then, on what is being called “Avatar Day”, Friday the 21st, there will be two screenings (one at 6 PM and one at 6:30 PM) on more than 100 IMAX 3D screens around the world.  The screening will feature an introduction by Cameron and will show footage that was not seen in the 25 minutes presented at Comic Con.

Greg Foster, president of IMAX Filmed Entertainment, had this to say about the promotion:

I think that there’s not enough of an understanding of what show business means.  You can’t have business without showmanship. What Fox and [‘Avatar’ producer] Lightstorm Entertainment and Imax are doing is the personification of the correlation between those two words — ‘show’ and ‘business.’

Fox is not paying IMAX for the use of its theaters for this presentation.  However, Fox is fully funding the production and distribution of the digital prints, and IMAX is providing the 3D glasses.  The full trailer for ‘Avatar’ will also be released on Friday the 21st.

‘Avatar’ is set for release on December 18th.