Time In Development: 15 Years James Cameron wrote a huge treatment for Avatar back in 1994, which was a big budget love letter to the fantasy novels he read growing up. He wanted to pioneer realistic CGI characters for the film and initially planned to make it after Titanic. He didnt feel the technology needed was quite ready in 1997, so he put the script in a drawer and did a bunch of side projects instead. For a long time it looked like hed never get around to it, but then in 2005, he returned to the concept and shot some proof of concept footage. Fox was so impressed they immediately gave him the go ahead, and Cameron developed some brand new tech to shoot it. There was still a leap of faith involved since he wasnt sure the 3-D tech or photo-real CG would actually work the way he wanted, but he kept at it and the movie hit cinemas in 2009 to much buzz. Worth The Wait?: While the movie might be the highest grossing of all time, its fairly mediocre when you strip the 3D and fancy effects from it. Despite being labelled groundbreaking at the time nobody really talks about it anymore, and excitement for the forthcoming sequels seems practically non-existent.
