Thank Eywa: 'Avatar' Will Be Among The Day One Streaming Titles On Disney+
Though imagery from Avatar was featured on press releases when Disney officially acquired 20th Century Fox's film assets, James Cameron's 2009 sci-fi action film has not been listed in any of the announcements about content that will be streaming on the forthcoming Disney+. But that changed today, because Disney is going all-out to make sure you know that Avatar has an exclusive new streaming home, and it will be streaming on Day One of the new service. They even got Cameron to record a video about it.
Avatar on Disney+
So, when can you see Avatar on Disney+? If you live in the U.S., Canada, and The Netherlands, you'll be able to watch it on November 12, 2019, the day the streaming service officially debuts. If you live in Australia and New Zealand (where Cameron is currently filming the Avatar sequels), you'll be able to revisit the first film on Disney+ starting on November 19, 2019.
Disney clearly thinks this is a Very Big Deal, and it kind of is. Right now, Avatar is streaming on FX NOW, FX's streaming service (which is also owned by Disney). But moving it over to Disney+ is a splashy move that will get a lot more attention, and from Disney's perspective, that attention is certainly warranted. After all, Avatar is the second highest-grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation), having just been surpassed by Avengers: Endgame earlier this year. (Another Disney title, by the way. But don't worry, everything's fine! Just your standard, run-of-the-mill, complete and total industry dominance, so there's nothing to be concerned about!)
Avatar is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, and despite having left absolutely zero cultural footprint (I had to look up the name of the tree for this headline), the movie broke records when it debuted a decade ago. That success also transferred to the home video market as well: the film is evidently the seventh largest-selling home video of all time, and the second largest-selling Blu-ray ever. The sequels didn't get a greenlight just because some executive wanted to hand Cameron hundreds of millions of dollars to make a movie: the first one was a huge deal...but seemingly only for a short time. When was the last time you saw someone wearing an Avatar T-shirt, or heard someone quoting the original movie? Or, for that matter, talking about it in any context whatsoever aside from "how about those sequels?" or "hey, remember Avatar? It's weird that no one talks about that"?
I'm sure the sequels will surprise people when (if?) they eventually come out. But as for the first movie and its hardcore fans – the "Na'vi Nation," as the film's official Twitter account dubbed them – they'll be able to join their tails together in the streaming world very soon thanks to Disney+.