With thousands of fans across the country getting to see 16 minutes of James Cameron’s Avatar in select theaters, the studio is still giving the rest of us a peak at this mysterious film. The first teaser trailer went live today, though in French, shows us the world that the Titanic director conjured up.

The film, starring Sam Worthington (Terminator: Salvation), Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, and Stephen Lang (Public Enemies) is a sci-fi adventure about a hero who helps save a civilization, and “embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery” along the way.

Cameron initially had the idea for this film 14 years ago, but the technology wasn’t available for him to produce it properly. Finally, when pre-production began, the project took 4 years to finish, and this winter, we’ll finally get to see it. Check out the trailer after the jump. 20th Century Fox’s Avatar hits IMAX and 3-D theaters December 18 of this year.

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It’s interesting how much money is made that stemmed from jokes. 2006’s Snakes on a Plane generated $62 million dollars in the theater, not to mention merchandising and DVD sales, and the film all started with spoofed Photoshop image. It looks like the next Snakes will be Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, starring his cousin Danny Trejo.

The film started off as a mock trailer (which you can check out after the jump) for Rodriguez and Tarantino’s Grindhouse film back in 2007. There was talk about doing an entire film of spoof trailers, among many other pipe dreams. Rodriguez then mentioned that he wanted to turn the 2-minute trailer into a feature-length film, and here we are.

News just came in yesterday that the film has gotten it’s cast, and it looks to be pretty impressive, given that the film all started with a joke. Now signed on to do next year’s Machete alongside star Danny Trejo is Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Jonah Hill, Don Johnson and Jeff Fahey.

This almost seems like a joke itself, pulling in names like De Niro, Seagal, and Lohan in the same picture, but the story seems to be legit. Some of those name’s aren’t foreign to a Rodriguez pictures but Nash Bridges? The Lawnmower Man? Jonah Hill??

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The first full day at San Diego’s Comic-Con featured revelations and first looks at Tron Legacy, New Moon, Alice in Wonderland and a little film called Avatar. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? James Cameron offered fans an impressive 24 minute 3-D screening of his forthcoming, highly-anticipated film, and by all accounts, especially SciFiWire’s, the material more than lives up to heavy expectations.

The footage clearly impressed the crowd, who made no secret of their appreciation of what they saw. Cameron seemed quite pleased by this and told the crowd, “Everybody always asks: So where’ve you been? Well, that’s where I’ve been. Pandora.”

Avatar’s preview centered around Jake (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic grunt who enlists for the military’s avatar program, which allows the personality of humans to be projected into clones of the Na’vi people, an indigenous race of alien creatures. Once on the surface of Pandora, Jake gets into trouble with native creatures, is reluctantly befriended by a female Na’vi native named Natiri (Zoe Saldana) and learns how to mindmeld and control a pterodactyl-like monster.

Cameron also revealed that 15 minutes of material will available for free at IMAX 3D and regular 3-D theaters across the globe on August 21.

Avatar stars Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Zoe Saldana and Giovanni Ribisi and will be released on December 18, 2009.