Mike The Pike Productions Inc (MIKP)

[TenKay]

"you're right. it was a 10-yr project.
but shooting didn't start til 2007,
with 2 years of post."

Yes and no. Since we are discussing the life cycle of a film. It might have looked like 10 years...but as a practical matter it was done in 4 years from development to release.

A higher year number (10, 15, etc.) gets thrown around because the idea was first developed in 1994 with alot of script work done with the intent of filming in 1997 and a release in 1999. But as is commonly known, Cameron put it on the shelf due to technology limitations in being able to make it the way he wanted to.

Pre-production work actually started in 2005, filming in 2007 and post production in early 2008 with a release in late 2009.

It was a 4-year film from beginning to end.

The point being, I am not sure it can be used as a relevant example of "how long a film takes" in order to explain Mark's delays in post production for his film.

If anything Avatar does the opposite.