Avatar Hitting DVD and Blu-ray on April 22

Fox today announced its plans for Avatar‘s release on DVD and Blu-ray and they are somewhat unconventional, though with James Cameron and the biggest movie of all-time involved that shouldn’t come as a big surprise. The initial release will come on April 22nd, not coincidentally that is Earth Day. As opposed to the standard Tuesday releases this places Avatar to arrive in stores on a Thursday.

Because of the desire to provide the absolute best audio and visual transfer the DVD and Blu-ray copies will contain no extras or even trailers. Outside of the simple menu setup the disc will contain only the movie. This, apparently, is the first time it has ever been done. Of course sometime in the future (reportedly in November) new editions of the movie will be released that include the extensive extras that everyone would be looking for out of a film such as Avatar.

The MSRP with be $29.99 for the DVD and $39.99 for the Blu-ray. Many retailers such as Amazon generally list movies under the MSRP by about $10 or so.

There will be no 3D version of the movie released for the time being. Some rumors have slated the 3D version to come late this year but Fox is denying that it will be out that soon. Cameron wants to wait until the marketplace catches up and enough people have 3D capabilities in their homes before releasing it.