By T.L. Stanley

To launch a game-changing movie like James Cameron’s Avatar, executives at 20th Century Fox knew they needed a good marketing game plan.

Among the audience members to address were the geeks, the information-thirsty blog-happy core who’d help convince the rest of the world to get off the sofa and pay a premium to see a two-and-a-half-hour movie about lanky, nature-loving blue aliens.

To that end, there was an interactive trailer with an unprecedented level of depth; a prominent wormhole on popular gaming site IGN that replicated the human-to-avatar transformation in the film; a hot-ticket 15-minute sneak peek of the effects-laden flick at Imax theaters; and augmented reality-based promotions from A-list partners Mattel, McDonald’s and Coke Zero.

But for all the groundbreaking digital programs aimed at influencers, the marketing team ultimately leaned most heavily on old-school traditional media: television ads, and lots of them, starting with 90-second spots two months in front of the release, a highly unusual move.

“We were super aggressive on TV,” says Pam Levine, who, along with Tony Sella, is president of marketing at the studio. “It was all about the audio visual. Print couldn’t do it justice, and neither could outdoor.”

The action thriller, with a production budget of $300 million and a worldwide marketing spend of about $150 million, has become the top-grossing film of all time, with a global take of $2.7 billion. And though it seems like an obvious megahit in retrospect, there was nothing about the approach to Avatar that said Fox assumed it was working with a slam dunk.

“The plan was so well thought out and meticulous,” says Larry Gerbrandt, entertainment analyst and principal at Media Valuation Partners. “There was no downside to exploiting the movie to the fullest extent. The only crime would’ve been if they hadn’t. There are no second chances.”

Avatar, which broke records when it opened in December but has made the lion’s share of its money this year, is part of the reason for 2009’s historic haul at the box office. For the first time, the U.S. domestic tally broke $10 billion—to $10.6 billion, up about 10 percent from 2008.

The blockbuster, which commanded higher ticket prices for 3-D, also has encouraged what some call a “Starbucks mentality” for movie marketing that promises a better movie experience for more money. Raising the stakes that way puts even more emphasis on marketing.

Fortunately, Fox’s marketing machine kicked into high gear in 2009. Avatar wasn’t the only success for a studio that’s long had a reputation for keeping a close eye on costs. Fox cashed in on Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

For those movies, executives put together blue-chip partnerships of the kind that evp, marketing Jeffrey Godsick says “continue to grow in importance” in an ultra-competitive environment. Those deals meant that contest winners could have sleepovers in the Smithsonian (courtesy of Kraft) and shoppers could buy Wolverine-themed Schick Quattro razors.

More recently, the studio released a short clip of Cameron Diaz nearly wiping that famous toothy smile off her Knight and Day co-star Tom Cruise’s face during some stunt work for the action comedy. (She kicks him into a craft services table). More than 50 million people have seen the viral bit, which showed up on Oprah during a Diaz/Cruise visit.

And Charles Barkley and his NBA commentator cohorts appear in “lost audition” tapes for the role of Mr. T to hype the upcoming remake of The A-Team. The vignettes aired on TNT during the NBA playoff games via a deal among the pro league, the studio and the cable network.

“The way to stand apart is to create something unique and newsworthy that can give you cultural relevance,” Godsick says. “You need people to say, ‘Did you see that?’”

Nowhere was that more important than with Avatar, an original property (not a sequel or based on a comic book) with no preawareness among the general public. And because of its sci-fi underpinnings, it was a potential turn-off for women.

“We sold the visuals and the event nature of this film,” Levine says. “We said, ‘This is happening in December and you’ll want to be part of it.’ We presented it as a cultural experience.”

One that can apparently be repeated. Cameron, for his part, has said he’ll produce two more Avatar movies, which seems as close to a sure thing as there is, but Levine says he’s not taking anything for granted.

“For sequels and franchises, you have to promise to give people what they love but emphasize what’s new,” he says. “The marketing has to be fresh and the creative needs to break form. You can’t rest just because people loved it before.”     

The honchos at Summit Entertainment don’t mind that their independent start-up gets referred to as “the Twilight studio.”

    It’s that surprise megahit franchise, after all, that Summit execs saved from the discard pile of competitor Paramount Pictures. The Twilight Saga has so far pulled in $1.1 billion at the worldwide box office, with the third entry, Eclipse, set for release on June 30; in November 2011, the first part of a possible two-part adaptation of the final Twilight book will hit screens. Now for the studio’s next act, in which it tries to become known for movies aside from Twilight. “Twilight was a turning point, without question,” says Rob Friedman, Summit’s co-chairman and CEO. “And it’s a reason we may be better known for young-adult entertainment. But we try not to be pigeonholed.” Summit, which posted $482.5 million at the box office last year, has some justification for that belief. It was the studio behind Oscar-winning drama The Hurt Locker and $80 million-grossing thriller Knowing. It’s the producer behind the Step Up dance-movie franchise that’s raked in more than $262 million worldwide since 2006, with a new 3-D incarnation hitting screens in August.

    Summit recently released Letters to Juliet, an Italy-set romance with Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave, and has an action comedy with Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren called Red coming this fall.

The projects are diverse by design, but have a common thread, Friedman says: “They’re very entertaining, and they’re commercial.”

    In other words, don’t look for obscure documentaries and arthouse-only fare flowing from the Summit pipeline. To prove that point, the studio acquired worldwide rights to the Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus franchise, based on the megaselling book series by John Gray.

The studio also plans to revive the Highlander franchise with a feature film in 2011, will spin its big-screen action-thriller Push into a TV series and just picked up Paul W. S. Anderson’s upcoming 3-D swashbuckler, The Three Musketeers.

    Still, not everyone’s convinced that Summit’s roster will put it in the big leagues. Brandon Gray, president of tracking firm Box Office Mojo, said the fledgling indie studio may be better served by zoning in on the Twilight audience. “They’ve released 19 movies, and the two Twilight movies are 60 percent of their lifetime grosses,” Gray says. “Twilight does define them, and they could build a thematic brand around it.”     — T.L.S.

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