James Cameron first feature film since 1997's "Titanic". It is composed almost entirely of computer-generated animation, using a more-advanced version of the "performance capture" technique used by director Robert Zemeckis in "The Polar Express". James Cameron had written an 80-page scriptment for "Avatar" in 1995 and announced in 1996 that he would make the film after completing "Titanic". In December 2006, Cameron explained that the delay in producing the film since the 1990s had been to wait until the technology necessary to create his project was advanced enough, since at the time no studio would finance for the development of the visual
Titanic (1997 film) cast as extras in the film. James Cameron had a fascination with shipwrecks, and, for him, the RMS "Titanic" was "the Mount Everest of shipwrecks". He was almost past the point in his life when he felt he could consider an undersea expedition, but said he still had "a mental restlessness" to live the life he had turned away from when he switched from the sciences to the arts in college. So when an IMAX film was made from footage shot of the wreck itself, he decided to seek Hollywood funding to "pay for an expedition and do the same