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Production:

In 1994, director James Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for Avatar, drawing inspiration from "every single science fiction book" he had read in his childhood as well as from adventure novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard. In August 1996, Cameron announced that after completing Titanic, he would film Avatar, which would make use of synthetic, or computer-generated, actors. The project would cost $100 million and involve at least six actors in leading roles "who appear to be real but do not exist in the physical world". Visual effects house Digital Domain, with whom Cameron has a partnership, joined the project, which was supposed to begin production in the summer of 1997 for a 1999 release. However, Cameron felt that the technology had not caught up with the story and vision that he intended to tell. He decided to concentrate on making documentaries and refining the technology for the next few years. It was revealed in a Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story that 20th Century Fox had fronted $10 million to Cameron to film a proof-of-concept clip for Avatar, which he showed to Fox executives in October 2005.In February 2006, Cameron revealed that his film Project 880 was "a retooled version of Avatar", a film that he had tried to make years earlier, citing the technological advances in the creation of the computer-generated characters. In making the film they used many different technologies to film it to make it look ‘out of this world’. They had new technology to create this image. The actors were highly skilled, some not as famous as others but still the film featured some of the top actors. The film was estimated  $280–310 million to produce and an estimated $150 million.

 

Distribution:

 

The first photo of the film was released on August 14, 2009 and Empire magazine released exclusive images from the film in its October issue.

The 129-second trailer was released online on August 20, 2009. The new 210-second trailer was premiered in theatres on October 23, 2009, and then soon after premiered online on Yahoo! on October 29, 2009, to positive reviews. An extended version in IMAX 3D received overwhelmingly positive reviews. The Hollywood Reporter said that audience expectations were colored by "the [same] establishment skepticism that preceded Titanic" and suggested the showing reflected the desire for original storytelling. The teaser has been among the most viewed trailers in the history of film marketing, reaching the first place of all trailers viewed on Apple.com with 4 million views

The Coca-Cola Company

The company collaborated with Twentieth Century Fox to launch a worldwide marketing campaign to promote the film. The highlight of the campaign was the website AVTR.com. Specially marked bottles and cans of Coca-Cola Zero, when held in front of a webcam, enabled users to interact with the website's 3-D features using augmented reality (AR) technology. 

MacDonald's

 McDonald's had a promotion mentioned in television commercials in Europe called "Avatarize yourself", which encouraged people to go to the website set up by Oddcast, and use a photograph of themselves to change into a Na'vi.

Books

Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora, a 224-page book in the form of a field guide to the films fictional setting of the planet of Pandora, was released by Harper Entertainment on November 24, 2009. It is presented as a compilation of data collected by the humans about Pandora and the life on it.

Video games

Main article: James Cameron's Avatar: The Game

Cameron chose Ubisoft Montreal to create an Avatar game for the film in 2007. The filmmakers and game developers collaborated heavily, and Cameron decided to include some of Ubisoft's vehicle and creature designs into the film. James Cameron's Avatar: The Game was released on December 1, 2009, for most home video game consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, iPhone), Microsoft Windows and December 8 for PSP.

Having a variety of platforms to distribute Avatar reached out to many of the target audience, the target audience was aimed at 8-80 year olds. When the premiere of Avatar was at Leicester Square in London instead of having one poster advertisement the whole strip was filled of avatar advertisements. 

 Exhibition:

   The film was originally set for release on May 22, 2009, but was pushed back to allow more post-production time (the last shots were delivered in November) and to give more time for theatres worldwide to install new technologies such as 3-D projectors. It had a saturated release into UK cinemas, showing in 503 cinemas in the first week and 485 in the second. This saturated release was mutually beneficial for both audiences and institutions, as audiences got a larger choice of where they could go watch the film, and this therefore meant that more people could go watch the films, leading to higher box office sales (and a larger profit), benefitting the institution. Plus, cinemas benefitted largely from the saturated release of Avatar in 3D. Avatar was released in a total of 3,457 theatres in the US, of which 2,032 theatres ran it in 3-D. In total 90% of all advance ticket sales for Avatar were for 3-D screenings showing that audiences were seeing the film for the 'experience'.