"Avatar" makes bazillions

[therealshell]

"Avatar" is the winner and new worldwide boxoffice champion.

After six rounds on the foreign circuit, "Avatar" is now the biggest-grossing film of all time, as earlier predicted.

Distributor 20th Century Fox said the James Cameron mega-budget blockbuster's worldwide cume -- excluding Puerto Rico -- was through the weekend just $2 million shy of "Titanic's" global boxoffice record of $1.843 billion. (Boxoffice in Puerto Rico, although generated offshore, is considered by Fox as part of its domestic total.)

The distributor confirmed that "Titanic's" historic benchmark fell as of early Monday.

[Lacey]

Disclaimer: I have not seen it. But I like to call it Avatard considering the plot is so stupid and predictable.

[PolyesterAngel]

I enjoyed the movie.

Yes, the plot is predictable, but so are most other plots out there. I read once that there was only 8 original plot stories, and everything else is just an adaptation from these original 8.

[Lacey]

Yeah I see your point. I guess though, that when a giant blockbuster movie comes out, you don't want to hear, "it's the exact same plot as Dances with Wolves!" right away. All you hear about is the effects, cinematography, etc. Which is cool, I'm sure. But I still have no idea who any of the characters are because no one seems to have any real connection to them or the story, and to me that's a mistake. That's just what turned me off to the movie and makes me have no real interest in seeing it.

[PolyesterAngel]

I felt a connection to most of the characters and was definitely blown away by the special effects... and it only hit me a few weeks later that it's the same plot as Pocahontas. That being said, I still really like it :P

[Lacey]

ommmgggg flashbacks to Disney songs! hehe

Yeah I'm not saying other people shouldn't like it, just saying what has turned me off to seeing it, really. Obviously it's all subjective :)

[PolyesterAngel]

no it isn't. IT'S AN AWESOME FILM and you just need to realize YOU'RE WRONG.

:rolleyes:

[Lacey]

whoahhhh stop channeling uh, someone, it's scary!

[Amicustoall]

I have always thought that speaking in terms of gross revenue is not a fair assessment of the success of a movie. I mean how can you compare a movie that was released the first time when tickets were $.50 to a movie where the average ticket price is $9.00? Why don't they use number of tickets sold?

[Michelle in WI]

I was on the fence about Avatar, but went to see it. I'm very glad I did. It really is worth seeing for visuals alone. And this is coming from someone who normally HATES that argument.

Plus, Dominic likes playing with the 3D glasses we brought home for him.

[really_mzungu]

I will go see the movie when someone, when asked, "How was the movie?" replies with "Wow, great story, it really sucked me in" instead of "It was visually stunning!"

Or when I get bored enough.

[Lacey]

heh, great way of summing up the point I was trying to make, Laurel.

[Michelle in WI]

Let me put it this way, the story was pretty good, and the visuals were phenomenal. I know exactly where you're coming from, though. I usually hate that argument. I refuse to watch most big summer blockbusters (Transformers? Please).

[therealshell]

Let me put it this way, the story was pretty good, and the visuals were phenomenal. I know exactly where you're coming from, though. I usually hate that argument. I refuse to watch most big summer blockbusters (Transformers? Please).

How did you feel about The Dark Knight ?

[PolyesterAngel]

I have always thought that speaking in terms of gross revenue is not a fair assessment of the success of a movie. I mean how can you compare a movie that was released the first time when tickets were $.50 to a movie where the average ticket price is $9.00? Why don't they use number of tickets sold?


I do beliebe they take inflation into consideration.

[Amicustoall]

I have never seen a statistic that does that polyester. They just look at gross sales.

[PolyesterAngel]

I have never seen a statistic that does that polyester. They just look at gross sales.

I've have always heard inflation and adjustments mention when talking about gross sales.

[Amicustoall]

I want to see those actual figures now.............is intriguing.

[PolyesterAngel]

I want to see those actual figures now.............is intriguing.

I said heard. I've never looked for or seen any figures. I've heard them on the radio or in a TV program.

[Amicustoall]

I realize you don't have the figures polyester. I was merely saying I would love to see actual calculations. It is intriguing for many reasons such as: 1) It would be interesting to see if the rate of inflation is at all tied to teh increase in ticket prices historically (my gut says ticket price increases have exceed the rate of inflation, 2) The mathematics involved in adjusting for inflation etc.

[therealshell]

I think if inflation is considered, then "Gone With the Wind" might be the most popular Hollywood film ever. Were it released today, they'd probably be charging at least what you have to pay to see "Avatar," which is close to $20 with the 3-D glasses and all.

[kinch]

That's why you should look at the quantity of tickets sold. Different things inflate at different rates... remove the ticket price and just look at quantity to see it distortion free.

[therealshell]

That's why you should look at the quantity of tickets sold. Different things inflate at different rates... remove the ticket price and just look at quantity to see it distortion free.

That is exactly what I mean.

[TheHYPO]

I think if inflation is considered, then "Gone With the Wind" might be the most popular Hollywood film ever. Were it released today, they'd probably be charging at least what you have to pay to see "Avatar," which is close to $20 with the 3-D glasses and all.


Some lists adjust and some don't:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Canada_and_the_United_States

This article, for example,has adjusted and unadjusting. With adjustment, Gone With the Wind is the highest grossing film of all time in the the US and Canada; Avatar is way down at 34. But GWTW is 98 on the unadjusted list with Avater at #3 (and presumably climbing).

That list also includes tickets sold (but obviously, only domestically). One problem is, though, that ticket sales seem to always be estimated. Especially for a film that old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

That article has a section called "issues with calculation" that discusses the problems you run into when you try to inflate the numbers (such as that movie tickets haven't inflated at the same rate as the general inflation rate).

What can be said is that in uninflated numbers, GWTW still held the record from 1939 until it was beated in 1973 (34 years). That's a pretty good indication of how far it surpassed it's peers.

The worldwide wiki list doesn't attempt an inflated list, however.

[WeedMage]

I thought Avatar was pretty good. I saw A LOT of other movies in that one, including Dances, LOTR, and others I can't remember right now. Didn't see Pochantas at all, but now I do - it was TOTALLY Pochantas! :) Definitely predictable - who DIDN'T know the red dragon was gonna make a come back or that the ending was what it was ...

I saw the 3D version and it's the first 3D I've seen in a long time so it was very distracting at first, I got over it after about a half hour. The scenes with all the floaty things (seeds) were pretty cool.

One thing I caught - when he introduces himself as Jake (was it Jake?) Sully ... the Pandorans started calling him Soo-ly ... they only HEARD his pronunciation of it ... Sull-ly (like dull) - why did they call him Soo-ly (like sue)?????

Haven't looked at Hypo's links, but don't they consider the number of tickets sold in any way? I mean - sure they look at the $$ amount a movie makes, but I believe there's also a look at how many tickets are sold. No inflation involved there. Altho there are certainly more theaters around than when GWTW was making the rounds.

[PolyesterAngel]

I thought Avatar was pretty good. I saw A LOT of other movies in that one, including Dances, LOTR, and others I can't remember right now. Didn't see Pochantas at all, but now I do - it was TOTALLY Pochantas! :) Definitely predictable - who DIDN'T know the red dragon was gonna make a come back or that the ending was what it was ....

http://failblog.org/2010/01/10/avatar-plot-fail

:)

[WeedMage]

http://failblog.org/2010/01/10/avatar-plot-fail

:)


That's BRILLIANT! Thanks for posting it!

[therealshell]

James Cameron has been called out for plagiarism before, so the fact that the same thing is happening with "Avatar" is no big deal to him, I'd wager.

Writer Harlan Ellison accused (correctly) James Cameron of ripping off the idea(s) for "The Terminator" from him, and he made some money from that, as well as had an acknowledgement added to all future versions of the movie.

[TheHYPO]

Haven't looked at Hypo's links, but don't they consider the number of tickets sold in any way? I mean - sure they look at the $$ amount a movie makes, but I believe there's also a look at how many tickets are sold. No inflation involved there. Altho there are certainly more theaters around than when GWTW was making the rounds.

As I said, the issue with that SEEMS to be that, at least for older movies, ticket sales are estimates at best. I've seen articles talking about ticket sales, so they must keep track of it somewhat these days, but back in 1939, I don't think they kept records nation-wide.

But there IS an article out there that clearly indicates that Star Wars has still sold more tickets than Avatar has (curiously, though, the article negated to actually provide the numbers of how many tickets). One thing to note for Avatar, and others like Dark Knight especially, is that IMAX adds something like 30% to the price of tickets at my local theatre. That means that for everyone seeing the movie in imax, it brings in a third more money. So even if the two films sold identical numbers of tickets, do you have to take exception that Avatar sold better because it upsold x% of tickets with imax prices? Or do you conversely purport that imax is irrelevant because what matters is how many times people watched the film and were willing to pay to see it.

People often use the inflation argument to suggest Gone With the Wind is far superior to a modern film. I'm curious though; very few people ever make the opposite argument. Gone With the Wind was from 1939. TV was fledgling; VCRs were decades away; don't even think about Blu-Ray 3D.

If someone loved gone with the wind, they would HAVE to see it twice... three times... four times... There was no other way to see it. I think that in comparisson, a significantly larger audience prefers to see a good movie today once and then if they like it, commit to buying the DVD (which I don't believe contributes to the movie's Gross). As such, today's movies are at at least one disadvantage there - other disadvantages include the larger number of distractions around (TV, video games, etc.) for those interested in big visual spectacles, and I don't know this for a fact, but I would guess there are more movies produced a year now than there were then; so more options for viewers.

Just some food for thought.

[really_mzungu]

James Cameron has been called out for plagiarism before, so the fact that the same thing is happening with "Avatar" is no big deal to him, I'd wager.

Writer Harlan Ellison accused (correctly) James Cameron of ripping off the idea(s) for "The Terminator" from him, and he made some money from that, as well as had an acknowledgement added to all future versions of the movie.

From what I've heard, I doubt it's plagiarism. It's just taking a bunch of extremely-overused themes and putting them together in an uncreative way. (I mean uncreative in story, obviously not in visual effects.)