Running time 161 minutes Country United States United Kingdom Language English Budget $237 million $9 million+ (re-release) Box office $2. Map Google. 788 billion Avatar, marketed as James Cameron's Avatar, is a 2009 American directed, written, produced, and co-edited by, and starring,,,, and. The film is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are colonizing, a lush of a in the star system, in order to mine the mineral, a. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of – a species indigenous to Pandora. The film's title refers to a Na'vi body with the mind of a remotely located human that is used to interact with the natives of Pandora. Development of Avatar began in 1994, when Cameron wrote an 80-page treatment for the film. Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Cameron's 1997 film, for a planned release in 1999, but, according to Cameron, the necessary technology was not yet available to achieve his vision of the film. Work on of the film's began in 2005, and Cameron began developing the screenplay and in early 2006.