After multiple theatrical runs and two separate home video releases, Avatar still needs to be released on the Blu-ray 3D format. But after that, James Cameron will stop peddling the movie around.
Apparently Cameron either realizes he’s already insanely rich and doesn’t need to keep milking the Avatar cash cow, or he realizes that we’re finally getting kind of sick of the movie.
At an event to promote the upcoming release of the Avatar Extended Collector’s Edition DVD and Blu-ray, Cameron said there wasn’t much left to do with the movie, except for the 3D home video format.
“There’s only one more play, maybe one, two years out, and that’s [Blu-ray] 3D,” he said.
Wait, wait, wait… Back the truck up. Did he just say the Blu-ray 3D version might be “two years out”? Surely that’s not what he meant to say.
Then again, 20th Century Fox, which published Avatar, signed into an exclusivity deal with Panasonic to help promote its brand of 3D TVs. The deal gives Panasonic the exclusive distribution rights of the Blu-ray 3D version of Avatar for an undisclosed period of time. Cameron’s new comments suggest that period of time may be longer than expected.
Avatar is in the record books as the highest-grossing movie of all time, surpassing Cameron’s own Titanic which held the top spot for well over a decade. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD earlier this year, but only as a bare-bones version with no real bonus features. To incite holiday sales, the Extended Collector’s Edition goes on sale next month.
In addition to that, Avatar has been re-released in theaters two times after it was originally pulled from most locations. In other words, the movie didn’t come out a year ago and already it’s been made over with more special treatments than most flicks get over 40 or 50 years.
“It’s just by the grace of God … the amount of money Avatar made,” commented Cameron.
