Chinese national park challenges claim it wasn't 'true inspiration' behind 'Avatar' movie

London, Aug.3 (ANI): A Chinese national park has announced a reward of 10,000 pounds for anybody who proves that forests of the national park were not the inspiration behind the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar.

Officials at the Zhangjiajie National Forest in China's Hunan Province have claimed that their spectacular sandstone pillars in the forest were the inspiration for the 'Hallelujah Mountains' on Pandora, the film's densely forested set-up.

However, they are reportedly facing a challenge from bitter rival Huangshan, the Yellow Mountain Range in southern Anhui province , in eastern China, which has claimed that it was the true source of the film.

"Give us a pic of a place with a better claim and we will pay up the money the same day, but we are not worried because we are the real inspiration for the film," the Daily Mail quoted a Zhangjiajie spokesman, as saying.

Huangshan managers claimed that the film's director, James Cameron, said he had in fact based the mountains on their site.

Zhangjiajie tourism bosses, to further cement their claim, changed the name of the Qiankun Pillar to Hallelujah Mountain, and started to cash in with Avatar souvenirs, and later naming other attractions after parts of the film, the paper said.

The Zhangjiajie National Forest Park's 3,544ft Southern Sky Column is one of 3,000 in the forest and officials claimed that it was the inspiration for the magical 'floating peaks' in James Cameron's film.

Avatar took more than five years to make and was reportedly one of the most expensive films, with a budget of at least 300 million dollars, the paper added. (ANI)