'Avatar 2' Is So Expensive It Must Become the 'Fourth or Fifth Highest-Grossing...
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'Avatar 2' Is So Expensive It Must Become the 'Fourth or Fifth Highest-Grossing Film in History' Just To Break Even
How expensive is "Avatar: The Way of Water"? Early reports have claimed the production budget alone was in the $250 million range, but director James Cameron isn't willing to give a hard number just yet. The only answer Cameron would give about the sequel's budget when asked by GQ magazine was the following: "Very fucking [expensive]." From a report: Cameron apparently told Disney and 20th Century Studios executives that his sequel budget was so high it represented "the worst business case in movie history." According to the director's estimates, "you have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history. That's your threshold. That's your break even." On the current chart of highest-grossing movies worldwide (unadjusted for inflation), Cameron's original 2009 "Avatar" ranks at the top with $2.9 billion. Disney's "Avengers: Endgame" is in second position with $2.7 billion, while Cameron's "Titanic" remains in the third slot with $2.1 billion. That means, according to Cameron, that if "Avatar: The Way of Water" wants to break even, it'll need to overtake either âoeStar Wars: The Force Awakens" ($2.07 billion) or "Avengers: Infinity War" ($2.05 billion) in the fourth or fifth slots, respectively.
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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22, 2022 @01:04PM (#63071670)
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Take out the special effects, and it was a very forgettable, very predictable story. Competent enough in execution but not the type of thing you would ever talk about afterward.
I tend to agree I don't see a sequel being as successful as this allegedly needs to be, but I've been wrong about all sorts of ideas that became wildly popular. Presumably they've done their market research. Good luck to them.
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Take out the graphics and nifty 3D you have "Dances with Wolves" in space.
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Dances with Wolves was another pretty good movie though.
Bottom-line, there aren't that many different plots that people find interest in.
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I regret that Cameron made Avatar, mainly because if somebody now makes Deathworld by Harry Harrison into a movie, it will seem derivative.
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I'm glad somebody else noticed that, I always referred to it as "Dances with Smurfs". I didn't hate the movie but yeah, the story was nothing special.
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It was nearly the indentical plot of Fern Gully.
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But Fern Gully is a good movie.
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Take out the special effects
Enjoyment tip: don't do that. You definitely want the special effects.
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It's not just the graphics, it's the quality of the 3D which - literally - has to be seen to be believed. In the cinema, to be exact; you'll not experience the same incredible immersion watching it on a 3D TV. I suppose some cinemas will screen it before Avatar 2 is released, and if you haven't seen it yet, I recommend you make use of that opportunity. The experience really is something special, and in no way compares to any other 3D movie (except maybe Cameron's "Sanctum")
As for the story, it's ok. It's an enjoyable SF movie, entertaining but nothing special.-
Well I guess it's my loss. Recently I've become acutely aware when I'm in a movie theater I'm breathing in the gob of strangers.
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If you don't mind watching alone, buy a VR headset with a high resolution. Watching 3D movies on such a device actually works extremely well when combined with a decent video player: https://skybox.xyz/ [skybox.xyz] (no affiliation with them, I just like their product)
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To be very honest, the 3D sucks. Why you ask?
Because the director / animator constantly pulling focus make my brain go bzzzzzrk!
In the real world we move our gaze around, adjusting focus as we look at the foreground or background. Since Avatar did this for us it felt very exhausting to watch.
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Actually, Avatar was the ONE 3D movie that got this right. They almost constantly had a very large depth of field, allowing the viewers to choose what to look at since everything was crisp. This made the 3D experience great. The only thing I ever saw in 3D that was as good was a U2 concert compilation from a bunch of shows in South America in 3D. That was in iMax, and the sound quality was amazing too.
I later watched Avatar at home in good resolution, but 2D, and it was really bad. Pulling focus to direct t
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Ther are light field video cameras - or "were"at the height kf the light field craze but they were huge and probably not practical to shoot a movie wirh. In the case of avatar as 3/4 of the movie is actually CGI or actors standing in front of a greenscreen, it should be possible to make a shallow DOF version but nobody did it. Yet.
Btw. Imho, gravity looked great in 3D as did the Harry Potter movies although they were converted in pos (which is probably the better method anyway, compared to filming wirh st
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The first Avatar movie was only a hit because of the graphics. I still haven't even seen it, because I heard the story sucks.
You're probably already familiar with the story. [mattbateman.net]
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The first Avatar movie was only a hit because of the graphics. I still haven't even seen it, because I heard the story sucks.
You're probably already familiar with the story. [mattbateman.net]
Sure, but that's also because every story is kinda familiar [savannahgilbo.com].
Notice how about half-way through a movie things are going great but you suddenly get a bad feeling? That's because things have to start going really wrong to push the protagonist to their lowest point before they really in act 3.
That's not really a bad thing, good writers tend to be good readers because story telling is about refreshing and adapting old stories.
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The 3D stuff was a novelty and it was one of the first blockbusters that used that format. However, it had a lot of fanfare, but after a while, it just died out... Storyline is predictable, the characters were cool and one got their RDA value of a nice fantasy elven trope versus the evil human corp soldiers. However, what was new then isn't really something that will pack the theaters now.
In general, any underwater movies are going to be expensive, and perhaps underperform. Waterworld comes to mind, alth
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Waterworld was a flop in America, and American ticket sales did not recover costs, but it did pretty darned well overseas, so in the end I don't think it can be considered a flop so much as an underperformer. What it did do is shred Kevin Costner's reputation, who was the main producer.
If you want to see a box office bomb on the level that Avatar 2 might end up being, look at Cleopatra from 1963. Because of the massive production costs, even though it did well, the bar needed to be so high just to recoup lo
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Let me throw a curve ball at you just for fun. Suppose Avatar 3 and 4 were always just a misdirection to cover up that 2 was a planned catastrophe from the start? Just really spend whatever the hell he wanted to play as he wanted, no concern for profit.
Go out, not on a high note with the financiers, but with the movie makers - who get new tools, paid for with the expenditure of Cameron's political capital.
Clive Cussler said it was his dream to have the last words he hears in a hospital be "Sir, it's t
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Other than the Godfather Part 3, I can't think of any franchise that waited that length of time
C'mon man, Top Gun Maverick!
Nevertheless I would agree with your point in general, except it's James Cameron. I still remember how many articles came out before Titanic on how expensive and over-budget it was, all the puns about it being a 'titanic' film and going to 'sink' Cameron.
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Idk. I've had a few people who are normally not very interested in this kind of movies already ask me about the sequel. So maybe it will perform better than thought by movie snobs like me who thought it had a quite formulaic story and looked plasticky (but dug the 3D back then)
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Well if this is as good as Waterworld, I'm good to go. I enjoyed that movie. Somethings are just fun watches. You can't analysis it so much.
You can't take these movies seriously. They are just for fun and enjoy the visual effects.
I also enjoyed Avatar, despite Dances with Wolves being a significantly better way to tell that kind of story.
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Because it will be one of the few 3D movies out there with real 3D and not some kind of 2D-to-3D post-conversion or some hybrid between the two where the CGI environment is rendered in real 3D but the actors are shot in 2D (which invariably results in cardboard cutouts floating in a 3D scene). I am taking live-action movies of course, not polygonal cartoons. And the 3D will be done right because James Frickin' Cameron (James Cameron has a personal passion for stereoscopy, so he won't go in it with an "I hav
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The same guy who signed off on a 3D re-release of Titanic. The only movie I've seen with good cinematic use of 3D is Hugo - a kids' movie. It was as instrumental to the visual storytelling as a focus pull.
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It's Dances with Wolves but with spaceships, marines, and aliens.
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Dances with Smurfs.
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by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Tuesday November 22, 2022 @02:08PM (#63071914)
The first Avatar movie was only a hit because of the graphics. I still haven't even seen it, because I heard the story sucks. Now every movie has good graphics, so why see Avatar2 if the story is worse than other current movies? Seems like this should be "direct to streaming" fodder, like the "direct to DVD" a decade ago.
Possibly, but HOLY S**T look the films he's directed [wikipedia.org].
The Terminator (I & II), Aliens, Titanic, and of course Avatar. Those are massive hits that are still remembered. The only "misses" are The Abyss (which did fine, and seems to have had great reviews) and True Lies (which was a hit, just not on par with the others).
He has two of the top three grossing films of all time, and virtually every other top grossing film, including the rest of the top 6 was part of a franchise at the time of release [wikipedia.org].
Cameron seems ridiculously underrated as a director, counting on a $2B+ boxoffice for a franchise release is a good bet.
Oh, and as for the graphics look at the trailer for the original [youtube.com]. It's from 13 years ago and if that trailer was released today people would be raving about it. Now look at the new trailer [youtube.com], that's another very beautifully shot film.
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If anyone can make it work, it's James Cameron. And I don't think anyone is doubting it will be a spectacle. The problem is will pack the theaters when other big ticket films have struggled.
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by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22, 2022 @03:20PM (#63072168)
quantaman observed:
The only "misses" are The Abyss (which did fine, and seems to have had great reviews) and True Lies (which was a hit, just not on par with the others).
The Abyss was a theatrical disappointment only because the studio forced Cameron to cut 40 minutes out of its run-time.
My wife and I were both disappointed in the theatrical release. I recall saying, "Well, it was a good movie - but I was expecting something more from James Cameron.
When the Special Edition (i.e. - director's cut) came out, we bought the DVD. It was SUPERB! All the missed timing and "lumpiness" of the theatrical release were gone, the acting seemed to noticably improve, and, subjectively speaking, despite 40 minutes of additional and extended scenes, it seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. Where the theatrical version dragged, the SE raced like a greyhound, ratcheting up the suspense and tension with every passing moment.
When the credits rolled, I remember turning to my wife and sayiing, "Holy SHIT! Now, that was the movie I was expecting Cameron to make!
I recommend the SE without reservation - especially to folks who have only seen the theatrical version. As for True Lies? I dunno what to tell you about that...
(Posting anonymously only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)
Check out my novel [amazon.com]...
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I heartily agree with your assessment of The Abyss.
Without those 40 minutes, one of the major points of the movie is completely missed making it un-rewatchable to me.
I've seen the SE version maybe 2 dozen times over the years.
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The movie looks beautiful. If reports come back that the plot is reasonably decent, then I'll watch it.
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The only "miss" is Piranha 2: The Spawning
It might be so bad it's good, but the original movie was actually brilliant, so it was a massive letdown.
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I remember George Harrison once quipping "The Spice Girls are just as good with the sound off", and that's how I feel about Avatar. The story is basically "Pocahontas in Space", so if you're looking for some sort of intellectual stimulation on that level, then forget it. But visually, I can't think of a film that blew me away more. I can't do 3D, it just gives me double vision and a headache, so I watched it on a 2D screen, but it was spectacular to watch, and I think it would have worked just as well as a
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I wouldn't say it sucks, it just very meh and forgettable.
Seen it a couple of times. Couldn't tell you anything about it beyond there is blue furries in it. -
[*spoilers*]:-)
It's about greedy corporations/governments that want to displace indigenous people to stripe-mine their lands for a rare element that magically defies gravity -- on a moon of another planet. Even though the element is apparently abundant and fairly easy to mine on this moon, they call it "Unobtainium" because of (a) lazy writing, (b) an homage to the movie "The Core", (c) the word "Speeder" was already taken by the Star Wars franchise. Eventually, the indigenous people unite around "the
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Just a re-release of the original Avatar did really well [gamerant.com].
There's something more going on there than just graphics. A lot of people love that world (personally I dislike everything about Avatar, but that is just me).
I predict Avatar 2 will make the numbers needed...
Something else the story is not factoring in though is that it really doesn't have to make the box office numbers indicated to be a success... the box office merely adds into how much of a draw the movie will be in terms of bringing in new, and r
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Avatar was the same thing for the movies as Unreal was for computer games back in 1998 - an unremarkable story, but a breathtakingly beautiful alien landscape. I still remember the first time looking out of the Vortex Rikers when blaring of the siren changed to the first chords of "dusk horizon". Same thing with Avatar except its graphics aged better.
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The cartoons asked for a raise?
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Southpark had the best take on Avatar. It's "Dances with Smurfs".
Recommend
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