10 Movies That Escaped Development Hell (And Were Worth The Wait)

Avatar is the only film on this list which was actually held up in production limbo because director James Cameron was actually waiting for filmmaking technology to catch up to his vision. Yup.

Cameron began developing the film in 1994 and was initially supposed to begin filming immediately after Titanic for a 1999 release, but as he felt that CGI technology wasn't yet at a high enough standard, he spent the better part of the next decade re-writing the script, creating the world's lore, and designing visual effects elements.

Cameron eventually convinced a skeptical Fox to sign off on shooting by threatening to take Avatar to Disney instead - irony! - with filming finally beginning in April 2007, more than two-and-a-half years before it eventually hit cinemas.

With the film's groundbreaking VFX tech and the sheer hulking ambition of the project, considerable skepticism mounted in the months leading up to Avatar's release that it could turn a profit on its stonking $300 million budget.

But Cameron once again proved that he's never a man to bet against, with Avatar not only scoring strong reviews and nine Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, but grossing $2.79 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in history until Avengers: Endgame scarcely usurped it a decade later.

Though similar concerns have been raised about Cameron's four impending Avatar sequels, if anyone can pull it out of the bag despite the original film's general lack of a pop-culture footprint, it's surely Big Jim.