"Avatar: Special Edition", which includes an additional eight minutes of unseen footage will be released in theaters on August 27. However, the film will only be screened in 3D.

"Audiences repeatedly told me they wanted more of Pandora and wished they could have stayed there longer," Cameron said in the released statement. "So we’re making that possible. ‘Avatar: Special Edition’ will be exclusively in 3D and will have eight minutes of never before seen footage, including new creatures and action scenes. Whether you already love the movie, or you’ve never seen it, with this special edition, you’ll be seeing it like never before."

Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time, taking in over US$2.7 billion in worldwide box office. Avatar’s Blu-ray disc is also the top-selling Blu-ray disc of all time.

Will you be watching "Avatar: Special Edition"?

Avatar continues to dominate the movie industry with sales of 6.7 million DVDs and Blu-ray disks in the first four days, having sold more than 4 million total DVDs on the first day itself.

Twentieth Century Fox announced that James Cameron’s sci-fi epic has sold 2.7 million Blu-rays and 4 million DVDs since April 22 with a combined sales of $130 million and hence becoming the fastest-selling Blu-ray of all time.

At the moment, there is no announcement on a 3D DVD release just yet.

Avatar (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) [Blu-ray]

Best Picture

Avatar

James Cameron and Jon Landau

The Blind Side

Nominees to be determined

District 9

Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham

An Education

Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey

Inglourious Basterds

Lawrence Bender

Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness

A Serious Man

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Up

Jonas Rivera

Up in the Air

Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman

Directing

Avatar

James Cameron

Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino

Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

Lee Daniels

Up in the Air

Jason Reitman

Cinematography

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Bruno Delbonnel

The Hurt Locker

Barry Ackroyd

Inglourious Basterds

Robert Richardson

The White Ribbon

Christian Berger

Art Direction

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro (Art Direction); Caroline Smith (Set Decoration)

Nine

John Myhre (Art Direction); Gordon Sim (Set Decoration)

Sherlock Holmes

Sarah Greenwood (Art Direction); Katie Spencer (Set Decoration)

The Young Victoria

Patrice Vermette (Art Direction); Maggie Gray (Set Decoration)

Actor in a Leading Role

George Clooney

Up in the Air

Colin Firth

A Single Man

Morgan Freeman

Invictus

Jeremy Renner

The Hurt Locker

Actress in a Leading Role

Helen Mirren

The Last Station

Carey Mulligan

An Education

Gabourey Sidibe

Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire

Meryl Streep

Julie & Julia

Animated Feature Film

Coraline

Henry Selick

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson

The Princess and the Frog

John Musker and Ron Clements

The Secret of Kells

Tomm Moore

Click here for the list of full winners.

Paris Hilton joined the Avatar’s craze with Paris Hilton’s Avatar. It was sent by a fan named Abdullah Ali.

Cool or scary?

(Via Paris Hilton Online.Net)

Avatar has toppled Titanic to become the highest-grossing movie with $1.859 billion compared to Titanic’s $1.843 billion and Avatar did it in 38 days.

The data, however, are not adjusted for inflation.

Ticket sales for Avatar got an additional boost from premium prices for 3-D screenings. Fox said 72 percent of worldwide sales come from 3-D engagements.

Now, James Cameron shares the honour of having two films in the all-time box-office Top 10 with Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson and Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, except that he has the top two spots.

The governement has also denied reports that the reason behind the pull-out was made to reduce competition for home-grown films, especially a biopic of philosopher Confucius, starring Chow Yun-Fat, which is due out next week.

Despite being the second highest grossing film of all time and still growing, Vatican said that ‘Avatar’ is no masterpiece and is rather bland.

The Vatican newspaper and radio station both criticized James Cameron’s 3-D for choosing nature over religion. They also call the movie a simplistic and sappy tale, despite its special effects.

“Avatar” will be released in Italy on Friday.

Grab the original script and compare it against the final cut to find out what didn’t make it into the film.

(Via MovieWeb)

Avatar became the fifth film to reach $1 billion worldwide as it reached $68.3 million domestically last weekend.

The other movies which have surpassed the $1 billion figure are “Titanic”, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” and “The Dark Knight”.

Cameron is edging closer to become the only filmmaker to direct the two top-grossing movies globally.

Now, you can create your own Avatar too. Check out my Avatar: -

Check out my Avatar (in flash) and create your own Avatar today!

Last weekend of the year was its best ever for Hollywood as James Cameron’s 3-D “Avatar” toppled “Sherlock Holmes” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” to record $278 million at the domestic box office compared to July 2008 weekend when “The Dark Knight” led a film lineup that took $260.8 million in ticket sales.

“Avatar” recorded $75 million in ticket sales for a total of $212.3 million in domestic ticket sales. The worldwide gross reached $617.3 million in just 10 days making it very likely to become the fourth film in history to reach $1 billion worldwide.

James Cameron’s Avatar reached $27 million on Friday in US alone. If not because of the bad weather, the figure would have been higher. Avatar is nowhere near New Moon’s or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opening. On the bright side, James Cameron’s Titanic made $28.6 million on its entire opening weekend and become the highest-grossing film of all time with a worldwide total of over $1.8 billion.

Check back soon for total weekend gross.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington in "Avatar"

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former U.S. Marine paralyzed from the waist down is chosen to join the Avatar program after his identical twin brother Tom is killed. Jake reaches Pandora, the home of the indigenous race called Na’vi with hundred other personnel. Pandora is mostly covered with lush rainforest and exotic wildlife. Jake is introduced to Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore), a biologist and Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), a botanist and the leader of the Avatar program, which allows human to control avatars. Avatars are genetically engineered human-Na’vi hybrids who look like Na’vis. Using the avatars, Grace has managed to teach some Na’vi English.

After several weeks of training, Jake, Grace and Norm explore the jungle of Pandora but Jake encounters a group of Hammered Titanotheres, an animal which looks like rhinoceros with hammer. The Titanotheres flee when a Thanator, a fearsome land predator appears. Jake flees from the Thanator and ends up deeper in the jungle. When Jake lights up a fire torch, he attracts a large group of Viperwolves which attack him. A female Na’vi called Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) rescues him and kills several of the Viperwolves before they all run away. Jake is then caught by her fellow Na’vi led by Tsu’Tey (Laz Alonso), but Neytiri alleviates the situation by telling her people that Jake is a pure spirit as chosen by the seeds of Eyra. Following that, Eytucan (Wes Studi) and Mo’at (C. C. H. Pounder), the king and queen of the Omaticaya tribe agree to teach Jake the way of the Na’vi with Neytiri as the tutor.

As Jake manages to bond and control his flying Banshee, he gains respect from the people of Na’vi and eventually is regarded as one of the Omaticaya. However, when the three-month period is over, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the leader of the human race sends Bulldozer to destroy the forest leaving Neytiri’s father died in the process. Neytiri feels that Jake has betrayed her and the Na’vi race while Jake and Grace are sent back to their human body and locked away for treason.

Trudy Chacon, (Michelle Rodriguez) rescues them and sends them to the Tree of Souls, together with the avatar transfer pods. In order to regain the Na’vi’s trust, Jake tames and successfully controls Toruk Macto, a flying creature bigger than the Banshee and the highest in the Pandora Food chain. Jake manages to regain the Na’vi’s trust and reunites with Neytiri. Together with Toruk Macto and Tsu’Tey, Jake manages to gather around 2,000 warriors from other tribes. Quaritch learns that from his intel and decides to destroy the Tree of Souls once and for all.

The final battle between the Na’vi and the human races is epic and action-packed and promises to be nothing short of excitement. In the end, the Na’vi manages to use the force of nature to win the battle and send the remaining humans back to Earth. Jack decides to stay in his Avatar form for eternal and through the Tree of Souls, he transfers his human body to his avatar form and wakes up as a Na’vi.

Avatar is an incredible piece of epic film which might as well be the best film of 2009, if not for the entire decade. Truly a masterpiece, Avatar is just brilliant, whether it’s the visual, sound, cinematography or the story. Now, I have to get back to my pod.

My ratings: 9 out of 10.

According to BBC News, Leona Lewis has recorded the signature song for upcoming science fiction film, Avatar. The song is called “I See You”. The song is produced by the same men that produced Celine Dion’s Titanic hit “My Heart Will Go On”. The movie Avatar is also produced from Titanic director, James Cameron.