3D Week: Avatar Ready for UK Pre-Order, But With No 3D

The Blu-ray of James Cameron's 3D extravaganza was tipped for an April 22nd release by the man himself and the majority of people would have assumed this was to be its US debut, with Europe following a short while after.  However, starting today, Avatar is getting a high profile pre-order campaign in the UK, with the release date set as April 26th.

Email alerts have been sent out this morning, ensuring everyone knows the biggest movie ever is nearly ready for home viewing.  We also expect that a date so near means the movie will have a joint rental and retail release.  But, the big news is not that you can pre-order your copy, but that April's release will be a standard 2D version.  This falls inline with Cameron's words concerning a potential November 3D special edition, which will presumably be used to drive Christmas sales of 3D televisions and Blu-ray players.

If you're not bothered about 3D, here are the versions which are yours to pre-order right now:

Blu-ray/DVD Combi Set.

As expected, the basic Avatar disc will have no extra features at all, but you will get the film on both Blu-ray and DVD.  The three main UK online shops all offer this disc for £14.99.

Steelbook Blu-ray/DVD Combi Pack.

As we expected following Play.com's accidental leak of this disc at the beginning of the month, there is a Steelbook version of Avatar for the collectors.  It's not a Play exclusive though, but an 'online exclusive' offered by Amazon and HMV too.  As well as the Steelbook, the pack comes with four lenticular art cards and the 203 page Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide paperback book, as we noted previously.  This package will cost you £24.99, but if you're among the first 10,000 at Play.com to pre-order, then you'll get a glow-in-the-dark Avatar t-shirt too.

The cover art is the same for both the standard version and the Steelbook and the runtime is listed as being 155 minutes.

No date has been announced for Avatar's US release as yet.