I wonder if that was by accident. George Lucas was the first and last person to control merchandising rights for his movies. Which also means he was the first and last person that didn't have to listen to Hasbro about what the fucking Batmobile looks like. We sat through the 2nd Hobbit movie last night. It's Tolkien fanfic. It includes many characters that weren't in the books, shouldn't be in the movies, and are entirely designed to sell action figures. Ang Lee's Hulk was the first studio film where the actual theatrical release was considered a loss leader for the merchandising; that was 2003. Burger King merchandising tie-ins more than paid for the budget. You can buy Avatar action figures... but it's not a line where Hasbro can run off and do its own shit and make you have to incorporate some fuckin' playset into the next movie. See, that's the thing: James Cameron makes money from movies, not toys, not costumes, not pencils. I know the guys that turned Pirates of the Caribbean into a movie. They don't get dime one from anything but the movies. James Cameron is the kinda guy who, when all the American critics spend a year talking about how much Titanic is going to suck, releases it in Japan six weeks before North America just to stick it to the critics. He's the kinda guy who makes movies when he gets bored exploring the Marianas Trench. He's the kinda guy who will fucking finish Avatar at his house when the studio starts getting uppity and insisting he put up or shut up (friend was the DIT on Avatar; the last 6 weeks were in James Cameron's spacious garage). James Cameron gives a shit about your "pop culture footprint." He's here to make movies.
I get the sense they've met him. I really don't think he gives much of a fuck about Avatar toys. He made Terminator and it made him famous; he made Terminator 2 and it made him wealthy and powerful. Terminator 3? What's the point? Sure, he'll take the check; he's got a submarine to build. But when Avatar happens, it will reflect the things he wants, not the things you want because fuck you and your action figures. James Cameron made that the year Mork'n'Mindy and Battlestar Galactica came out. It's cool to compare the concept art to what he actually shot - dude has always dreamed bigger.
Okay, I'll buy all of that but if the first Star Wars film sold zero action figures, I would wager we'd all still be talking about it. It was a compelling story with characters you couldn't forget. Chewbacca, C3PO, R2.... list goes on. Avatar? Not so much. edit: There's more to a pulp culture footprint than action figures. I own zero Big Lebowski action figures, zero Anchorman action figures, but damn if I haven't heard those films referenced a million times..
Star Wars was a different era. GI Joe didn't have a show, movie, or any other tie-in because that shit was illegal. We can all reference Rocky Horror, too, and it was also a commercial failure. You don't get to be an indie cult hit when you clear 2.7 billion at the box office. Fox pulled the trailer. They were actually stumped, the marketing department, God bless 'em, because they'd never come across a film that had so many genres in it. Was it a comedy? Was it an adventure film? Was it a kids film? Was it a fairy tale? Was it an adult movie? And of course, it was all of these things, you see. And they didn't know how to pitch it. The film came and did some modest business — respectable, modest, but not the kind of money that they hoped.
It wasn't until about almost a decade later when VHS came out that the film found its legs again — from a film that had been mostly dead, it was suddenly alive again. And then it became this huge hit.