http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20008251,00.htmlSo this is playing out like Ghostbusters. Cameron had the name & movie rights since 1996.
What took Cameron so long?
The director wrote an 80-page treatment for Avatar in 1996 — but the technology (or the lack of it) held him up. That avatar the hero occupies for much of the film? It's big and blue, and Cameron had to wait for the F/X world to develop the means to realize his vision. The tipping point: Gollum, King Kong, and sundry visual advances pioneered by director Peter Jackson. Morever, Cameron says he's been waiting for movie theaters to embrace 3-D digital exhibition; he projects that Avatar will be opening on up to 1,500 3-D screens in 2009. (It'll also be released in 2-D format.) Finally, there was another pet project competing for his attention: Battle Angel, an adaptation of a Japanese graphic novel. Script problems on Angel and inspiring Avatar test footage helped Cameron decide.
THE OTHER 'AVATAR'
M. Night Shyamalan and James Cameron start a title wave
Poor M. Night Shyamalan. On the same day Fox announced James Cameron's Avatar, news broke that Shyamalan's new project will be a live-action adaptation of a Nickelodeon cartoon called... Avatar: The Last Airbender. (Shyamalan is committed to making three Avatar films with Paramount's Nick Movies.) A Fox rep says they're keeping the title, while a Paramount rep had no update about their project's name. How about a coin toss?
So just as Filmation was the true Ghostbusters, Cameron's Avatar was first as well, but as with Filmations Ghostbusters, Everyone is going to think Cameron's is the rip off (at least kids).