Avatar (2009 film) Avatar (2009 film) Avatar, marketed as James Cameron's Avatar, is a 2009 American epic science fiction film directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron, and stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the mineral unobtanium, a room-temperature superconductor. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na'vi – a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The film's
Avatar (2009 film) on the studio and its financiers. A studio spokesperson said that the budget was "$237 million, with $150 million for promotion, end of story." "Avatar" is primarily an action-adventure journey of self-discovery, in the context of imperialism and deep ecology. Cameron said his inspiration was "every single science fiction book I read as a kid", and that he was particularly striving to update the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs's "John Carter" series and the deep jungles of Pandora were visualized from Disney's 37th animated film, "Tarzan". He acknowledged that "Avatar" shares themes with the films "At Play in the Fields