Sorry. Missed that last part. LOL.
Talk about misleading lol. China was one twelfth the size of the current Chinese market in 2009.
Endgame owes its success in China to Avatar actually breaking that market open.
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Deadline: Avengers Endgame Will Overtake Avatar, Becoming The Highest Grossing Film of All Time
- Thread starter Deleted member 42
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Sorry. Missed that last part. LOL.
Talk about misleading lol. China was one twelfth the size of the current Chinese market in 2009.
Endgame owes its success in China to Avatar actually breaking that market open.
Avatar had a completely absurd 3D to 2D sales ratio. Something like 80:20
The weekend before Alice, Avatar played in 2,456 theaters (domestic) and was ranked #4 at the box office in its 11th week of release. The weekend Alice was released, Avatar played in 2,163 theaters and was ranked #5 at the box office in its 12th week of release. It didn't "lose all of its screens."
It's true that it did lose many 3D screens, as jett mentioned, and that weekend's 40% drop in gross was the largest Avatar had yet seen, because Avatar had held exceptionally well in its earliest weeks. But the narrative that Avatar was cut off at the knees by Disney stealing all its screens for Alice is pretty foolish. Everyone has to deal with competing for screens, that's just part of the game. Fox positioned Avatar the best they could by releasing it in December, but something was going to take those 3D screens eventually. 12 weeks is a hell of a run. It's pretty much the best-case scenario for Avatar imaginable, not one that was cut short.
That weekend wasn't even the biggest dip in screens Avatar had seen; it lost more theaters over Valentine's Day. And there were already signs that Avatar fever was finally starting to run its course. It dropped 27% in week 8 and 31% in week 10; a 40% drop in week 12, in the face of the first real blockbuster of 2010, isn't that far out of line with those drops.
I know Endgame's higher gross is due to the massive expansion in the Chinese market. The point I was trying to make was about how important China was to each movie's total gross, since we're talking about the worldwide record as a whole. China makes up a higher share of Endgame's worldwide gross, therefore Endgame's gross would be more impacted by the four-week limit in China, not less.
Still, I removed that part from my post, since I concede that it wasn't well explained and was distracting to my overall point.
Yeah, it's clear that they expected more than $10M domestic from that. Maybe the earliest warning sign that Avatar, despite its massive gross, wasn't about to become a beloved part of the popular culture.
I think that's pretty much all Avatar 2 has, though. Like, I don't think people are in love with those characters, or even remember their names.
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This is what I keep harping on. Nobody actually gives a shit about the characters and world of Avatar. You can't build a franchise on that.
Look at the toy sales. They were terrible.
Seriously I can't even remember a single characters name from it lol.
I just remember them by their roles.
White Savior
Chief's Daughter
Colonel Cliche
Evil Capitalist
Ripley
That Guy from Bones
Michelle Rodriguez playing the same character she does in every film
actually, it's more impressive that the finale to a 22+ film saga could generate as much in the box office as a movie with zero prequels. In virtually every entertainment industry, the number of people who digest a sequel is usually smaller than the entry before it. This is because people feel like they need to "catch up" or "won't understand what's going on." Like, why would you start reading a 23 chapter long book on the 22nd chapter?
Impressive. But I still think the Avatar run was far more impressive being a brand new IP and all.
I kinda like Pandora and all of its weird alien critters.
I still think the best thing the imagineers did when creating Pandora in Animal Kingdom was having the land's setting take place years after the conflicts in Avatar, where humanity and the Na'Vi have made amends with each other and have opened a nature reserve, in the "Valley of Mo'ara". That way the land and its attractions can just focus on the weird flora and fauna of Pandora without being bogged down by any "evil hoomans" storyline.
Flight of Passage is a rare theme park attraction where something doesn't go wrong along the way, it's just chilling and flying around on a banshee throughout Pandora, it's neat.
I still think the best thing the imagineers did when creating Pandora in Animal Kingdom was having the land's setting take place years after the conflicts in Avatar, where humanity and the Na'Vi have made amends with each other and have opened a nature reserve, in the "Valley of Mo'ara". That way the land and its attractions can just focus on the weird flora and fauna of Pandora without being bogged down by any "evil hoomans" storyline.
Flight of Passage is a rare theme park attraction where something doesn't go wrong along the way, it's just chilling and flying around on a banshee throughout Pandora, it's neat.
Every #1 in history has been a brand new IP. Endgame is the first sequel ever to be #1.
You'd be suprised how many movies (even ones you like) you can't remember the character's names of.
Thinking back to a ton of films I love, gonna have to call bullshit on that.
That have been number one all time? Only Avatar. Look at the list. Famous quotes and famous characters, all deeply ingrained in the culture. Avatar? Maybe they remember the planet or the Navi. More likely they will say blue people and 3D.
If you look at the biggest films of all time adjusted for inflation the vast majority were new IPs.
Having to watch the amount of films necessary to make Endgame make sense, even if it's not all 21, is an unprecedented demand on the audience. That is a gigantic hurdle that Endgame overcame which makes it a more impressive feat, IMO.
Even The Force Awakens works as a perfectly good entry point for someone who has never seen a Star Wars film before.
Maybe you are an exception, or I am wrong, but this came up in a screenwriting class and when I did the math I could only remember the really big ones I love. I can think of many films I've seen a lot or I liked immensly, of which I just don't know the characters name of or have to dig deep. And I am sure I am not alone, as I quized friends about this too.
I am not denying Avatar did not become part of popular culture. I just always found the 'names'-argument strange, as if that's the metric or the proof? (And it also implies the big public remembers names as easily as pop culture fans, which I am not so sure of outside of the real big franchises)
The point is that the characters of Avatar didn't leave much of an impression on people like the tech did. It's difficult to build a brand on tech alone. People need to be invested in the characters and world to want to keep paying money to return. It's what moves merchandsie and when people buy merchandise they live with that presence in their homes and build a relationship with it.
Think of all the really big franchises. All of them have memorable characters. That's what people buy into. That's why Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom brought back Jeff Goldblum. That's why Disney payed out the nose for Harrison Ford. They know Ian Malcom and Han Solo sell tickets.
I mean, shit, Mark Hamill has had a much more obscure career than either of those two but everyone in the world knows Luke Skywalker's name. More people than know the name of the actor who plays him. Same with the Harry Potter cast.
What is Zoe Saldana's character's name in Avatar? Her face is on the poster of the highest grossing film of all time (or was) and even a big nerd like me would have to google it.
Funny that she is in the two most successful films of all time, but most people wouldn't even recognize her if she was walking down the street.
Maybe I am naive, but you really believe a movie can make 2.8 bil without people caring for the characters and story, but only for the tech? Remembering names is no metric for that imo. I bawled my eyes out at films that I don't remember the character's names of.
And yes, people recognise Ian Malcolm, but I don't think the majority of the general audience actually remembers his name . I might be wrong as there is no hard data, but I would be really suprised if many could.
I believe Star Wars, Harry Potter and super heroes (whose name is often the title, lol) are exceptions. Last two aren't even born as films.
For all of Zoe's most notable roles she either been in blue face, green face or black face.
2016 was a wild year.
I feel like whoever made that photoshop tried to find the picture where she looked the more light skinned. lolFor all of Zoe's most notable roles she either been in blue face, green face or black face.
2016 was a wild year.
Not really? People engaged with the story and the characters when they watched Avatar. Avatar is a 162 minute movie. Visuals alone can't carry that running time without people giving a shit about what is going on.
The average moviegoer simply enjoys a movie (maybe even a few times), and then goes back to living their lives. The fact that there's no rampant obsession over it today like other fandoms doesn't mean nobody ever cared.
So, you looked inside the head of all those audience members?
Tech wás a part of its succes and word of mouth, but a good looking but dull 3 hour movie would not last long, let alone take the nr 1 spot. It's such a silly way to dismiss Avatars succes and project what you think of it on the general audience.
I don't get the sequel arguments.
Sequels have largely had much tougher times breaking all time records.
Don't get me wrong, they do insanely well, but Gone With The Wind, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., Jurassic Park, Tiranic, and Avatar were all standalone/the first films in the franchise.
Endgame is the first sequel in history to take this title.
Sequels have largely had much tougher times breaking all time records.
Don't get me wrong, they do insanely well, but Gone With The Wind, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., Jurassic Park, Tiranic, and Avatar were all standalone/the first films in the franchise.
Endgame is the first sequel in history to take this title.
I did the math and cut Avatars gross in half and it sneaks into 10th Spot on the all time list lol.
I'm not saying the film didn't engage people while they watched. I'm saying they didn't become attached to the characters afrer the film was over.
Proof of that is the total lack of merchandise on shelves for almost a decade. Even during its run the toys and merchandise sold poorly.
The whole point of this discussion is whether or not Avatar 2 can establish this as a big ongoing franchise. The big question is what makes a franchise successful, not a single stand-alone film.
No, that's not what you said. This is what you said:
"People need to be invested in the characters and world to want to keep paying money to return. "
Avatar made $2.7 billion in 2009. You don't make that kind of amount without people literally being invested in the characters and the world. Because they literally kept paying money to return for repeat viewings.
Maybe Avatar is not the kind of IP that does well with merchandising, such as toys. Maybe it just doesn't skew that young. It means very little to be honest. Only thing it means is the IP has been dormant and people obviously aren't going to remember character names of something they watched ten years ago, whether they enjoyed it or not.
That'll be up to Avatar 2, a movie we barely know anything about. James Cameron came back seven years later after the first installments of both the Alien and Terminator "franchises" (when they really weren't franchises at all) and made people give a shit. And at no point did he assume people were familiar with the material. Both movies work to reintroduce audiences to those worlds and to their rules.
People that keep repeating this argument ad nauseam thinking they've stumbled into some kind of major revelation, but you have not. Guess who realized this first?
James Cameron: I think the breathing room is a given. The fastest we could imagine making another film is three to three and a half years, from the moment we start, and we're not planning on starting tomorrow. It's not about me needing breathing room. It's that these films take time. There's going to be a natural breathing room. People will have forgotten about Avatar, by the time we get a sequel done, and then they'll go, "Oh, Avatar. Yeah, that would be cool." It's not like Iron Man 2, coming out the year after Iron Man 1. It ain't going to work that way.
2010, when Avatar was still in theaters.
Well i guess we'll just have to see. He said that before the MCU completely changed the film industry and now he's got 3 Avatar sequels announced.
I still think people paid for repeat viewing for the experience, the visuals, the tech. The 3D ticket sales vs 2D kind of speaks to that.
3D accounted for something like 45% of Endgame's take, didn't it? And it was just slapped on.
Really the important thing here is that Avatar is a thoroughly routine movie whose commercial success was carried by a technology gimmick that proved no more revolutionary than the Virtual Boy.
And like the Virtual Boy, it gave me a really fucking bad headache. Had to go home and take a nap just to make it through the rest of the day. Fuck that movie
And like the Virtual Boy, it gave me a really fucking bad headache. Had to go home and take a nap just to make it through the rest of the day. Fuck that movie
Merchandising stuff is another pulled-out-of-your hat-metric that says little imo. Could be due to so many factors. Thing is, the movie made a lot of bank, and you don't do that when people don't engage with the story or it's characters. It also sold a shit-ton of blu-rays/DVD's, which propably means people wanted to revisited it and cared.
Again, it's not because you didn't care and the movie is a bit of a 'oh yeah, I forgot about Avatar' in your nerdy pop culture bubble, that the overall audience didn't care or like the movie. They moved on, sure, but that's what the general audience tends to do with popular movies when the next big thing hits, only to be drawn back by the sequel. We'll see when Avatar 2 hits, and I might eat crow then, but it might very well be that the general audiences reaction to the trailer will be: oh yeah, Avatar, I liked that one.
Well i guess we'll just have to see. He said that before the MCU completely changed the film industry and now he's got 3 Avatar sequels announced.
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He intended to make sequels even before Avatar came out, saying it would depend on the succes of the original if he made them (planned as a trilogy first) and confirming 2 and 3 in 2010, long before the MCU was a big thing (Avengers wasn't out yet for 2 years). He mentioned an Avatar 4 in 2012, again, long before the MCU and the idea for cinematic universes started to dominate. Apart from this, I don't even see what the idea of 3 sequels has to do whit his words about the MCU, or the MCU itself. It's not like he makes Beevatar and Ceevatar, which are standalone films with new characters, only to join them into one universie with Avengatar.
Maybe because 3D was the best way to experience the story they loved? People will not repeatadly sit down their asses for 2 hours and 40 minutes for a story they don't like, just because the visuals are nice and the tech is great. Again, the movie is the second best sold blu ray of all time in the States and broke all sales records at the time. And that's not because of 3D, nor is it just to show of a new HD-tv. That's because people liked the film.
And IMAX probably boosted it quite a bit and I recall 3D never costing as much as an IMAX ticket over here.
Why not?
Stereoscopic 3d used to be a theme park attraction... so why wouldn't people treat this like a widely available attraction?
The Universal Studios Live Action theme park attraction for Terminator used stereoscopic 3d and Im sure lessons learned here carried over into Avatar.
Most, if not all the people I knew who saw it in 3d completely ignored the story. Hell by the time we left the screening we had already forgotten everyones names. Visuals are all it had and it was fine. Why try to pretend people invested in the whatever story.
