20th Century FoxAvatar is one of the most successful movies of all time, but a new documentary reveals why George Lucas’s company Industrial Light & Magic decided to pass on the movie.
Industrial Light & Magic is a visual effects house that was created by George Lucas to bring the first Star Wars movie to life.
Since launching in 1975, ILM has worked on some of the most spectacular movies of the last five decades, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Twister, Men in Black, Titanic, Pirates of the Caribbean, and multiple Marvel movies.
In the next few weeks, films that feature the work of ILM include Thunderbolts*, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Superman, and Fantastic Four: First Steps. But the studio passed on one blockbuster that proved to be a costly mistake.
ILM feared Avatar effects would be “unachievable”
20th Century Fox/ILMIn 2006, ILM was in the running to craft visual effects for Avatar, even creating test footage that featured Yunjin Kim as Neytiri and Daniel Bess as Jake Sully. That brief scene came to be known as the ILM Prototype.
But Weta Digital ultimately landed the gig, and in Light & Magic Season 2 Episode 3, ILM’s General Manager Janey Lewin explains why her employers passed on the project.
“We had made some conservative decisions in the past,” says Lewin. “As an example we turned down Avatar after many, many months of bidding [on] it, and working on a test that got it green-lit. Our leadership at the time, when faced with – ‘Okay, this could be unachievable, it’s so huge’ – they were not willing to take that risk.”
Lewin then reveals the project ILM chose to work on instead, saying: “But we had a great relationship with Gore Verbinski, and he had this incredible idea – Rango.”
That film was a success, grossing $246 million from a $135 million outlay. But those numbers pale in comparison to Avatar, which made $2.9 billion from a budget of $237 million, making it the most successful film of all time.
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