The big question for Hollywood this holiday season is whether James Cameron’s 3D science fiction epic, “Avatar,” will be as successful as his last movie, “Titanic,” which remains the most profitable film in history.

According to The New York Times, “Avatar” will have cost almost $500 million, including promotion, when it’s released worldwide this month. Because of “Titanic,” Cameron was given complete freedom by financial backers of “Avatar” to make the movie he wants, and for the past 12 years the director has designed new cameras and other technology to do just that.

Cameron’s ambitions are enormous, but as one of the movie’s stars, Sigourney Weaver, said to the press after 25 minutes of “select footage” was shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October, “Avatar” is “the movie Jim dreamed of seeing when he was 14, and I think he’s made a film that the 14-year-old in all of us will enjoy seeing again and again.”

The trailer for the movie bears out this observation. “Avatar” looks like a typical sci-fi adventure fantasy for boys. It’s about earthlings battling the indigenous intelligent species of another planet so that the earthlings can mine the planet’s valuable ore.

The visuals may be the most sophisticated ever designed for a film, but the story sounds familiar. Will audiences line up to see it?

“Avatar” will be released in Japan nationwide on Dec. 23 in a premium 3D version, dubbed into Japanese, and a 2D subtitled version. This dual release approach will also be used for “Up” (Dec. 5), the latest Disney/Pixar animated feature, which should appeal to a wider demographic than 14-year-old boys.

Grumpy old men are hardly the normal choice for protagonists of adventure tales, but Carl Fredericksen, the septuagenarian widower who attaches thousands of balloons to his house so that he can fly away to South America and fulfill a dream he shared with his late wife, is intriguing because he’s forced to live the adventure he never had time for in his prime.

The wonder of “Up” is the way it takes an odd premise and turns it into a moving and exciting film. It’s a true feat of imagination that has nothing to do with its technical achievements.

“Up” is the only major English-language family film opening here before to the holidays. (Another Disney movie, “Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure,” will be offered in a Japanese-dubbed version.) Spike Jonze’s long-awaited adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic illustrated book “Where the Wild Things Are” won’t come to Japan until mid-January.

Fans of elaborate costume dramas will have to be satisfied with “The Young Victoria” (Dec. 26), which follows the life of the 19th century British monarch, played by Emily Blunt, until shortly after her marriage to Prince Albert (Rupert Friend). By focusing on the queen’s youth the film searches for a balance between romantic drama and political intrigue and mostly finds it. It’s all very tastefully done, with lots of beautiful costumes and scenes set in what look like real palaces and old mansions.

As usual, Japanese moviegoers won’t get to see the big Hollywood films that open at year-end to qualify for the Oscars until the new year, but there are three major movies that have been handicapped as Academy Award contenders, especially in the acting categories, and all happen to be based on true stories.

Or true up to a point. Steven Soderbergh’s latest, “The Informant!” (Dec. 5), stars Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, an executive for the American agrichemical conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland who spied for the FBI after claiming that ADM was involved in price-fixing.

Soderbergh presents this business thriller as a comedy, and as it becomes apparent that Whitacre may be pulling everybody’s leg, the audience may wonder if Soderbergh is doing the same thing. Nevertheless, Damon’s performance is something to behold.

So is Meryl Streep’s impersonation of the late, beloved American TV chef Julia Child in “Julie & Julia” (Dec. 12), which is based on two books presented as parallel stories.

One is Julie Powell’s (Amy Adams) titular record of her attempt to prepare all 524 recipes in Child’s 1961 cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” and the other is Child’s memoir of her years in Paris after the war, when she learned all about French cooking from scratch.

Johnny Depp’s impersonation of legendary Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger in “Public Enemies” (Dec. 12) isn’t particularly faithful, but it doesn’t matter. Depp gives an appropriately intense performance in a movie that’s more about the taut restlessness of the criminal life than it is about one particular outlaw.

Director Michael Mann has made a career out of depicting the battle between the law and the lawless, and this may be his most definitive statement on the subject.

“The Fourth Kind” (Dec. 18) is also based on a true story, though believability may be in the eye of the beholder. A psychologist (Milla Jovovich) finds similarities between several sleep-deprived patients whose “recovered memories” indicate they may have been abducted by extraterrestrials. The inclusion of documentary footage from the real cases is supposed to make you believe it even more.

Believability is not an issue with Michael Moore’s latest muckraking polemic, “Capitalism: A Love Story” (Dec. 5), since the worldwide financial meltdown he chronicles in his populist-funny way is something most of us know firsthand. There’s nothing in the movie that’s new or provocative, but it’s nice to have Moore poking around for our benefit. Even 14-year-olds should appreciate it.(IHT/Asahi: December 4,2009)

Let’s hope James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ becomes a huge success!

Leona Lewis has recorded the lead song for director James Cameron’s much anticipated new movie, Avatar.

The former X Factor winner’s track, entitled ‘I See You’, has been produced alongside James Horner and Simon Franglen.

They are the same production duo responsible for Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’, which was included in Cameron’s 1997 epic, Titanic.
‘I See You’ will play over Avatar’s closing credits.
Set to release in December, the big-budget movie tells the story of a battle raging in a far-away world called Pandora.

The film utilises a number of groundbreaking new filmaking techniques and will be screened in both 2D and 3D.

As Gigwise reported last week, Lewis is due to embark on her debut UK tour next summer.

Is Leone Lewis a good enough singer for Avatar‘?