James Cameron said in an interview with
USA Today:
“We might be re-releasing [Avatar] this fall. It’s kind of gotten stomped out (in cinemas) because of Alice in Wonderland. The word we’re getting back from exhibitors is we probably left a couple of hundred million dollars on the table as a result. The question is the appetite still going to be there after the summer glut of movies. We’re going to assess that. We’re talking about maybe adding in additional footage and doing something creative.”
Hollywood Reporter is saying Cameron and the studio are talking about a rerelease because they think they could of brought in even more money if they been able to keep the digital and Imax 3D screens that they gave up when Disney brought out Alice in Wonderland in 3D on March 5 of this year.
It could look like as much as an extra 40 minutes of additional footage that wasn't in the original cut could be in this new re-release version.
Cameron has said that he had 10-12 minutes of extra scenes that he took out the actual movie and they could easily quickly be put through postproduction and be ready to add to a director's cut for another theatrical release.
Note: Imax theaters only allow for 170 minutes in analog. Cameron could put in 10 minutes to the 160-minute film and can still be in all the Imax locations, this seems more plausible than trying to add a whopping 40 minutes. Hey remember, we'll be getting the DVD and Blu-Ray releases in the future too.
Avatar expanded 3D globally and broke records everywhere.
Cameron noted
"The word we're getting back from exhibitors is we probably left a couple hundred million dollars on the table as a result."
LEEE777 - Also theres talk from the director about the 3D release of Titanic too. Many thanks to Hollywood Reporter for the heads up, link below.