I know that here at Screen Rant we’re sometimes behind the times when it comes to reporting movie news - we just don’t have the staff and the time that other sites do… but we do our best. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: Sometimes that is a benefit to the site and to readers.

Case in point: Early yesterday (Novmber 21st) MarketSaw.com (a site run by a nice fellow with a big passion for 3D movies) broke a story containing what was supposed to be concept art for the main alien (Na’vi) in James Cameron’s upcoming 3D CGI/live action magnum opus: Avatar.

Way back last year (to the very day!) my first ever Screen Rant post was about the in-development Clash of the Titans movie. At the time nobody was yet cast in the film, but we knew that Lawrence Kasdan had penned the script. We know that Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier will helm the film, but until now we didn’t know who would be slipping into Harry Hamilin’s sandals to play Perseus in the Ray Harryhausen remake.

That changed today when news broke that the star of Terminator Salvation would be starring in the $100 million budgeted film.

Super nice guy Quint over at AICN had the chance a while back (prior to all the Terrence Howard/Don Cheadle news) to sit down with Iron Man director Jon Favreau. It’s a huge interview (took up two posts over at their site) and covers a lot of ground as far as Iron Man 2, The Avengers, and how all the movies involving Marvel Comics characters have to mesh into a cohesive whole.

As it stands, Hollywood studios are deadlocked in their contract negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild. That news stirs up foul memories of a year ago, when the Writers Guild of America was at a similar juncture with the studios… Soon after that there were no TV shows for about half a year.

And we all know what that did last year’s TV season.

If you haven’t heard, James Cameron’s upcoming sci-fi epic, Avatar, is a movie that is being filmed in photo-realistic, “stereoscopic 3D,” which mixes live-action and CGI imagery in a seamless blend.

We here at Screen Rant felt it was high time we helped get heads wrapped around the future of movie technology that Cameron is ushering in with Avatar - just as he ushered in the era of CGI with Terminator 2. And, in the spirit of sharing, we’ve come up with a layman’s dossier to help make you sound like a tech-wiz when describing Avatar’s innovative techniques around the water cooler. (You can thank us later.)

Guys over at Market Saw got a hold of some ‘concept art’ from James Cameron’s upcoming, “photo-realistic” 3-D, CGI epic, Avatar. And the pics definitely raise some interesting questions.

James Cameron’s next magnum opus: Avatar has been pushed back from a 2009 Memorial Day release to December 18th ‘09. I certainly wouldn’t have noticed it but other sites have pointed out that December 18th is the same date on which his last film, the mega-hit Titanic was released 10 years ago.

In its place on Memorial Day weekend will be the sequel Night at the Museum 2: Escape from the Smithsonian. On a side note, what’s with all these super long sequel titles lately?

I thought the first Museum was a cute family movie but I haven’t exactly been waiting with anticipation for a sequel. Bummer we’ll have to wait an extra seven months for Cameron’s 3D extravaganza.

Source: Sci Fi Wire

Nothing like a little controversy to get the ol’ movie blogosphere’s juices flowing…

A few days ago we posted an image of what was supposed to be concept art depicting a lead alien character from James Cameron’s next magnum movie opus: Avatar. It had already been out a few days prior on a number of sites and was originally posted up by a site that covers 3D movies called Marketsaw.com.

The reason we let it simmer a while before posting it is because sometimes images or news items pop up online and before you can say “huh?” it’s all over the place being reported as unofficial but solid. Now we’re not perfect, but here at Screen Rant we try not to report on every little whiff of news that comes out just for that reason. Sure, we post stuff that isn’t “official” but we try to gauge whether or not it is likely to be true.

So, the reason that we carried the story was due to the fact that Marketsaw was contacted by Fox Studios and told to remove the image. That implied the image was legit.

[UPDATE: It looks like this may not be from the movie after all. AICN is reporting that James Cameron himself is saying this is NOT what the alien will look like. It's either an older concept drawing not shown to him, or a piece of fan art.]

The anticipation has been slowly building for Avatar, James Cameron’s return to the big screen since Titanic became the biggest movie ever a decade ago. And now we get our first look at one of the aliens from the movie!

I wasn’t expecting the alien to look like this, and in some ways, it kind of hearkens back to the aliens in Cameron’s The Abyss. More details about the movie plus a bigger version of the photo can be seen after the jump.

For a year or two, Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment was developing two projects, Avatar and his Battle Angel adaptation. His goal: Whichever was the first to be ready to shoot, was the one we’d see in theatres come May 2009. Obviously Avatar won out and has a healthy $190 million budget. Wow, Cameron always commands big budgets!