A Bones Episode Was Basically A Shameless Plug For James Cameron's Avatar

There hasn't been a surer big screen bet in Hollywood over the last 30-plus years than James Cameron — though he doesn't always make it easy on the studio footing the bill for his latest film on the way to the multiplex. Since recovering from his only true box office disappointment in 1989's "The Abyss" (which also happens to be his best movie), Cameron has been on the hook for The Most Expensive Movie Ever Made at least three times ("Terminator 2: Judgment Day," "Titanic," and "Avatar" – and it's possible "Avatar: The Way of Water" makes it four). Studio heads try their mightiest to never wind up holding that bag, but they also don't want to be the clown that said no to Cameron only to watch the maestro take his nine-figure "gamble" across town, where it becomes The Highest Grossing Movie Ever Made (a peak Cameron has summited twice) for their competitor.

Given the exorbitant price tags of his movies, Cameron places additional pressure on the studio when it comes to their marketing efforts. Marketing spends can occasionally equal the production budget, if not exceed it. Obviously, when it came to marketing "Avatar," 20th Century Fox wasn't about to cough up $237 million in ad money, so wherever it could cut corners it was happy to bust out the price-snipping scissors.

Like most of the other major studios in Hollywood, Fox had an entire television network at its disposal through which it could generate free publicity –- and it was shameless about it. How far did they go? Fox got the "Bones" team to frame an entire episode around the long-anticipated release of Cameron's movie.

In the season 5 episode "The Gamer in the Grease," "Bones" got its geek on with a mystery about the murder of a video game-playing superstar who gets killed after earning a perfect score on the fictional game "Punky Pong." If you're saying, "Hey, that sounds more like it was inspired by 'The King of Kong,'" well, it clearly was, but at least the show couldn't use the title of the actual game. Not so with "Avatar."

When the gang at the Jeffersonian is asked to look into this possible murder, squintern Colin Fischer (Joel David Moore) panics that he might miss out on getting to see the premiere of "Avatar" (to which he won tickets on the internet). To ensure that he doesn't lose his place in line, he asks Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) and Sweets (John Francis Daley) to hold his spot whenever he has to go to work.

If you're wondering why "Bones" went the extra promotional mile for "Avatar," you must not be a Na'vi enthusiast. Moore also plays Dr. Norm Spellman, who accompanies Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) to Pandora. And if you're now wondering why an actor would agree to something like this, you don't know how hard it is to keep busy as a working actor.

Moore once told The Wall Street Journal he was thrilled to shill for Cameron's movie, explaining why "Bones" was the perfect vehicle for such unabashed salesmanship. "You couldn't have done this on 'CSI,' where everyone takes themselves so seriously all the time," he noted. "And you never see a clip of me or my avatar in the TV episode. It does get confusing. You can understand how an actor can go crazy and start drinking at noon."

"Bones" was nearing the peak of its Nielsen ratings popularity in 2009 (it ranked 32nd overall that year), so maybe it corralled some extra eyeballs for "Avatar." Most likely, everyone who watched "Bones" at the time spent that Thursday day/night in line at their own multiplex waiting to take their trip to Pandora.