James Cameron himself wasn’t happy that the Avatar online trailer preceded the Avatar Day IMAX 3-D screenings on Friday. The reason that happened, according to Fox, is that the trailer went out at the same time as the first 10 AM screenings in New Zealand on the other side of the world. It was a synchronous global release. The Apple site was so overwhelmed with clicks that it crashed at first. More than 4 million people streamed the Avatar trailer on that first day, breaking the prior record of 1.7 million set by Star Trek. So that was good news for Fox. Curiosity was high.

And many people went to see the 16 minutes of footage assembled by Cameron for Avatar Day—-designed to show exactly what the immersive huge-screen 3-D experience would be like. Now, most of my friends—clearly not the target audience—didn’t bother to check it out. And the theater I went to, The Bridge (which has a proper IMAX screen) was not packed. (There was another later show.) Some people weren’t able to get in to their local cinemas, though. (UPDATE: Fox asserts that “reservations for all showings were completely booked.” And Variety reports that Cameron slipped into the Bridge cinema Friday night.)

SOURCE = http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2009/08/22/avatar_day/