'Avatar' Trailer Attached to Transformers 2?!

There are a lot of reasons to see the new Transformers movie. Almost all of them are robots, along with the never-spoken-of shared hope that Megan Fox’s character will be revealed to be part of identical quadruplets who work at a water park. The movie has garnered all kinds of attention and hasn’t been shy about promoting itself but now there’s something new to look forward to. No, not Grimlock. (Damn. DAMN.)

It looks like the trailer for Avatar, James Cameron’s massive sci-fi adventure drama, is going to run before Transformers. Avatar (due out 12/18/2009) has thematic reasons for choosing to premier its trailer since it is also a movie concerned with transformation, or at least transfiguration, as the plot concerns a disabled Marine being having his consciousness transferred into the body of a big blue alien and promises plenty of computer generated eye candy. Many fans expected Cameron to debut his trailer before Terminator: Salvation since The Terminator and T2 were some of Cameron’s most notorious successes. It would have been a win-win scenario…either audiences would remember why they loved the Terminator or they would remember why they loved Cameron’s Terminator, either of which could have helped to boost Avatar’s gross. However, Transformers, an almost sure-fire smash hit not only domestically but internationally, may end up bringing more eyeballs to the screen. Remember also that Transformers debuts June 24th and has an almost unobstructed run of the summer action box office for the next two weeks, including Independence Day weekend.

There is concern about format where the trailer is concerned because it is known that at least some versions of the trailer will be available in 3D, with that possibly applying to all instances of the trailer. This would mean their either only 3D-projector-equipped theaters showing Transformers 2 could run the trailer or it could mean that audiences seeing a 2D Transformers might be “treated” to a 3D trailer before the movie. Will there be free glasses? Or are they counting on everybody still having the ones they got in the newspaper from Monsters vs. Aliens?

Check back here at Bam! Kapow! for the trailer when it debuts.