Avatar Passes $2 Billion: Never Bet Against Cameron

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I don't think much of his blue world or his blue cat people, but damned if the man doesn't know how to generate ticket sales. He's on track to have three of the top four movies of all time. What are his duds? Where has he really failed? Does Piranha 2 really count? Love him or hate him, he's Midas.



I think he'll fall off eventually, probably with a bankrupting project that belly flops so hard it takes a studio with him. That said, I'd never bet against him.



Victim of The Night
I'm actually shocked by this.
Not only do I not know a single IRL person who's seen this movie I haven't talked to a single IRL person who even wants to see it. None of my friends, not a soul at work mentioning it. It's had zero buzz in my world and I was kinda expecting to hear that it was the biggest bomb of all time.
Who's seeing this thing and how many times?



The doors of wisdom are never shut. - 'Socrates'
I'm actually shocked by this.
Not only do I not know a single IRL person who's seen this movie I haven't talked to a single IRL person who even wants to see it. None of my friends, not a soul at work mentioning it. It's had zero buzz in my world and I was kinda expecting to hear that it was the biggest bomb of all time.
Who's seeing this thing and how many times?
I've seen it once with my family and we all liked it. Some of them said they liked it better than the first. I can see why its not everybody's cup of tea tho.
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Victim of The Night
I've seen it once with my family and we all liked it. Some of them said they liked it better than the first. I can see why its not everybody's cup of tea tho.
Yeah, look, I wanna be clear, I'm not trying to talk shit about it, I haven't seen it and I never saw the first one, but I have a fairly large circle of friends and I work with a really large group where I may talk to 60 people in a day, and I haven't heard one person say they saw it or were going to see it or were interested in seeing it, so I just assumed it had missed.



I was talking with someone else about this in the context of cultural impact. There's a thing going around where people point out how little cultural impact Avatar has had, and maybe someone else counters by talking about box office (or, the better argument, that it's had an impact on the industry, which is not the same thing as the culture).

I think the way to square that circle is to note that to be good at making money, a movie doesn't have to move you, it literally just has to break the threshold of "is worth buying a ticket for." And sheer spectacle does that, in the same way many people would throw a coin in a bucket to see something a carnival barker's yelling about.

If someone says they have cutting-edge tech used in an art form I spend a huge chunk of my life experiencing and thinking about, then sure, I might buy a ticket to see what it's like. But I'm paying for a tech demo and not a story, let alone a transcendent experience.



A system of cells interlinked
Yeah, look, I wanna be clear, I'm not trying to talk shit about it, I haven't seen it and I never saw the first one, but I have a fairly large circle of friends and I work with a really large group where I may talk to 60 people in a day, and I haven't heard one person say they saw it or were going to see it or were interested in seeing it, so I just assumed it had missed.
This has been my experience, also. I haven't spoken to even one person that has seen this, or even seems interested in seeing it.
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



Re: not knowing anyone who's seen it. We're definitely self-selected against that kind of thing. It's got real Pauline Kael "I don't know anybody who voted for Nixon" vibes.

Which is good! It means you all have taste and your friends do, too. But we are definitely not a good, representative slice of movie-watching demographics.



Come to think of it, I've seen more popular chatter about The Last of Us than Avatar 2. I wonder if this "box office without buzz" phenomena is a sign of a dying industry, old-school story-telling like Top Gun flaring like an occasional nova as boomers and their families herd to familiar directors and narratives.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
I caught this a few weeks back. It was fine enough but seemed totally unnecessary at this point. Had it come out closer to the original, I think I would have liked it a lot more. While the visuals were superior, in my opinion, the story was relatively thin and, at times, quite silly with the main conflict being so small in comparison to the first film. I mean, this felt like Return of The Jedi would have felt having ended after the rebel/Ewok forces destroyed the death star shields from Endor.

For sure a must see in the theater for the visuals and audio. As a fan, seeing more of this world and evolutionary differences of the tribes are a plus. The story and some of the filler bits are just goofy in places. Cute, sure. Fun, maybe. Just damn goofy! But you need to see it on the big screen. For as much as I hate Jurassic Park, that too needs to be seen on the big screen. So there's some respect to be offered for sure.
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Victim of The Night
I was talking with someone else about this in the context of cultural impact. There's a thing going around where people point out how little cultural impact Avatar has had, and maybe someone else counters by talking about box office (or, the better argument, that it's had an impact on the industry, which is not the same thing as the culture).

I think the way to square that circle is to note that to be good at making money, a movie doesn't have to move you, it literally just has to break the threshold of "is worth buying a ticket for." And sheer spectacle does that, in the same way many people would throw a coin in a bucket to see something a carnival barker's yelling about.

If someone says they have cutting-edge tech used in an art form I spend a huge chunk of my life experiencing and thinking about, then sure, I might buy a ticket to see what it's like. But I'm paying for a tech demo and not a story, let alone a transcendent experience.
Yeah, I'm with you on that, I just haven't talked to anyone who wanted to spend the 3h 12m on a tech demo, no matter how good it is. Again, this is not an indictment of the film it's this weird disconnect that a movie that I have not talked to one single human, when I talk to a LOT of humans, who has seen the film could outgross every movie in history.
It's obviously happened somehow, someone, many someones are going to see this movie, I just apparently haven't run into them.



Victim of The Night
Re: not knowing anyone who's seen it. We're definitely self-selected against that kind of thing. It's got real Pauline Kael "I don't know anybody who voted for Nixon" vibes.

Which is good! It means you all have taste and your friends do, too. But we are definitely not a good, representative slice of movie-watching demographics.
Well, but I work with a ton of diverse people and we talk about things like music and movies to pass the time at work. And to not even hear or overhear from a distance, one person saying "Oh, I saw the Avatar" or whatever, it's just odd. You would think a movie making that kind of money would be on everyone's lips.



I was barely cognizant of the first one existing either, so I guess in that sense I'm not surprised.


I guess hearing the opening weekend numbers weren't spectacular (did worse than Captain Marvel, if I recall the headlines correctly), but I guess hearing (now?) that it's broken records is somewhat surprising.


Granted, The Northman became profitable because of streaming after bombing at the box office, so I clearly don't understand how money works.



I'm betting there's MoFos who can't wait to go see Avatar 2 but don't post about it as the first Avatar became some kind taboo film to like. But mainly it's audience will be kids, tween, teens and young people and they're the demographic that actually spends money to go see movies.



Well, but I work with a ton of diverse people and we talk about things like music and movies to pass the time at work. And to not even hear or overhear from a distance, one person saying "Oh, I saw the Avatar" or whatever, it's just odd. You would think a movie making that kind of money would be on everyone's lips.

Perhaps we have an addendum or parallel to the "dead internet" theory?



My guess is that Avatar 2 is a consolation prize (e.g., "Well, it is in 3D," "Well, it should have cool special effects," "The first one was OK, right?" "There is nothing else I really want to watch on the big screen, so...").



Welcome to the human race...
I'm not shocked by this. I think there's a certain irony to Avatar's "cultural impact" being a punchline - the most successful film ever made but nobody can remember the characters' names or anything about it other than that it's about blue cat-like aliens in a forest - but that meant it never really left the public consciousness either when so many similarly successful films have come and gone (thinking of Disney's live-action remakes here), to say nothing of when the pendulum swings the other way and an IP's cultural impact reaches such a saturation point that mass audiences get fatigued (the obvious example being how Marvel films all but require a viewer to keep up with dozens of feature films and TV shows to fully make sense of what's going on in any given installment). If anything, the business model is arguably comparable to that of the Star Wars franchise taking years between trilogies and how the passage of time (while admittedly due to technological constraints) meant that it's easier to appreciate the novelty of a new entry rather than running the risk of overloading audiences. You get audiences who only turn out for a handful of the big movies a year and this is definitely one of the biggest movies of the year, if not the decade so far.
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Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
But we are definitely not a good, representative slice of movie-watching demographics.
To think even MoFo isn't representative of the normie movie watchers!
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



I the most successful film ever made but nobody can remember the characters' names or anything about it other than that it's about blue cat-like aliens in a forest

I think you really nailed it in that line. Visually, it's a psychedelic basket of Easter Eggs in stunning blues, and purples, and pinks. Narratively, it is a super-saturated "beige" of tired tropes and stock characters--stuff you forget at about the same rate you witness it. It is forgettable while at the same time being visually arresting, a dream that evaporates upon waking but which seems captivating in the moment.The apotheosis of disposable entertainment.