James Cameron Had A Problem To Solve When It Came To Promoting Avatar

As the director of “Aliens” and “Terminator 2: Judgement Day,” James Cameron knew all too well how helpful it was to have a widely recognized brand name attached to your film when he made “Avatar.” He also knew that an original movie (as “The Terminator” was when he directed it in 1984) could be a double-edged sword in the same respect, as he told Total Film in 2009:

“It’s simultaneously one of the great strengths and one of the potential weaknesses. We have no brand value. We have to create that brand value.”

This was also why Cameron recognized that “Avatar: The Last Airbender” posed a problem for his movie, despite it being completely unlike the show (and vice versa) in every other regard:

“‘Avatar’ means something to that group of fans that know this film is coming, but to the other 99% of the public it’s a nonsense word and we have to hope we can educate them. Well, I shouldn’t say a nonsense word, it doesn’t mean anything specific in terms of a brand association.

“And in fact there may be even a slight negative one because more people know about the Saturday morning cartoon, the anime, than about this particular film. We’ve got to create that brand from scratch.”

Like Cameron said, however, there is an advantage to being original in the age of franchises. Where audiences have a rough idea of what to expect from the latest “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” movie (and can gauge their interest accordingly), “Avatar” had what Cameron referred to as the “shock of the new” when it first arrived. By promising to take people on a “journey of surprise,” the film had at least one advantage over its main competition.