Avatar Passes $2 Billion: Never Bet Against Cameron

Wow. I wonder how they are calculating this. Tickets + Streams doesn't seem like it would get that high especially since people are not exactly stampeding to theaters yet.

I have to admit that I was just middle-whelmed with the movie. The FX were terrific, but the whole concept was sort of a do-over. I saw it in our local full-bore, big FX movie emporium on a Friday and the theater was about half filled. Unlike epics like LOTR, there was not a line around the block, in spite of how I can't see the movie playing all that well on little screens.

I'd love to see how they counted up all of those dollars.

I like the Terminator series, not into the Avatar thing, but obviously its the most profitable thing hes done.

Makes perfect case for movie theaters. Its an experience not to be missed in the movies.

I missed the first one and nothing bad happened to me so I think I'm gonna miss this one too.
Looks like an excruciating waste of my time.

Aside from as a phenomenon of the moment, it reminds me of Titanic. I didn't get that one either, but somehow it did catch something in the movie going imagination. As somewhat of a reductionist, I recall noting that in Titanic, no matter how many times you make that movie, the ship always sinks, so there's not much suspense....just waiting for fate to play out. In Avatar, the Earthers always sink to our lowest expectations as exploiters and the plot setup reminds me a lot of old westerns that would never be done now and the relation between the Cavalry and the Native Americans informed by "noble savage" BS, something that used to be part of the Hollywood Mythology.

The characters are not all that interesting, and the plot is fairly predictable and, the movie is 3 hours long. I will admit that the visuals are amazing, but so far, even without any additional sequels, I've seen 6 hours of them and the blue folks are getting well worn. At this point, however, supposedly 3 more sequels are in the pipeline. I'd bet that those will at least be profitable.

As for Cameron, if I were him, I'd definitely ride this all the way to the bank. He has used his movies to do personal stuff few of us will ever do, like visit the actual wreck of the Titanic and in the next Avatar installments something about that will involve hiring a submersible to take him to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean. Were it me, I'd want my next movie to take me to Mars.