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Avatar: Disney+ drops film's papyrus font once and for all

Studio retroactively change the font, which became a laughing stock following a popular SNL sketch

Jacob Stolworthy
Tuesday 24 March 2020 10:22 GMT
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Avatar - Official Trailer

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Disney+ has made a key Avatar change that will please a lot of fans.

The streaming service launched in the UK today (24 March) sending House of Mouse fans, who have been waiting patiently for its arrival, hurrying to skim through the bursting library of titles.

One excited user noticed that the logo for Avatar, which was acquired by Disney following the Fox merger, has changed and is no longer in the papyrus font that was used when the film was released in 2009.

James Cameron’s film was roundly mocked for its logo in a popular Saturday Night Live sketch in 2017. It saw Ryan Gosling playing a man haunted by the creative decision to use a default computer font for the fantasy film’s title.

“He just highlighted Avatar, he clicked the drop-down menu, and then just randomly selected Papyrus,” his character says of the film’s graphic designer. “Like a thoughtless child just wandering by a garden, just yanking leaves along the way.”

One year later, the official Avatar Twitter account debuted a new logo, which had completely dropped the Papyrus font.

“Dreams CAN happen guys!!!” one twitter user wrote, adding: “#DisneyPlus has changed the #AVATAR font to look less like Papyrus! This truly is the magic of Disney.”

The ‘Avatar’ logo as it looks on Disney’s new streaming service (Disney+)

Cameron has been hard at work on the four follow-ups to his 2009 blockbuster for several years now, and recently revealed he was relieved to see Avengers: Endgame make so much money as it’s “demonstrable proof that people will still go to movie theatres”.

Cameron previously revealed why it has taken him so long to begin shooting the sequels, blaming underwater motion-capture technology – something he claims has “never been done before”.

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Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days

New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled

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Earlier this year, Avatar fans were treated to their first new look at the world of Pandora in just over 10 years.

The Avatar sequels will reunite Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver, alongside new cast members Kate Winslet, Vin Diesel, Jermaine Clement, Michelle Yeoh and Edie Falco.

Avatar 2 is scheduled for release in cinemas on 17 December 2021.

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