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not trolled not crying posted:I find it kinda funny that people are questioning will this make enough money or will people care about it after the spectacle wears off. As if this is going to have less spectacle or leave a less of a mark than a Marvel movie and those keep printing money and they are the definition of forgettable. I don't think anyone would've had those questions if he'd released these sequels 3 years after Avatar or even 5 years. Nobody criticizes Marvel stuff for being forgettable because it's baked into the cake at this point, everybody understands they're going to see disposable entertainment that will probably leave their brain the moment the credits roll. Marvel pumps these things out twice a year, we get that most of them are gonna come and go without making a lasting impact. When you're one of the most successful directors of all-time, and you develop something for an entire decade, people are going to wonder whether or not that time/money investment is going to pay off and not just in financial terms. When James Cameron is putting out a movie once in 10+ years we want it to be another iconic all-time classic like Aliens or Terminator 2, not another disposable Marvel flick. The standard is higher.
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May 9, 2022 20:30
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Avatar 2 has taken so long to come it missed the hype train but is just in time for the nostalgia train, rofl.
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May 9, 2022 21:08
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porfiria posted:Avatar 2 has taken so long to come it missed the hype train but is just in time for the nostalgia train, rofl. That's honestly a hilariously good point.
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May 9, 2022 21:23
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Avatar grossed $200m in its initial run in China. The number of screens in China has gone from ~6k in 2009 to ~60k in 2018. Easy money.
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May 9, 2022 21:41
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excited for another thread in which aggressive stans decide that everyone is against them for liking a movie
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May 9, 2022 21:50
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I'm looking forward to seeing all the goons who never set foot in cined to kramer in here and driveby shitpost, personally. Those are the best.
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May 9, 2022 21:53
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I post in CD sometimes! I shared the release schedule for Memoria in genchat a few weeks ago (Memoria: good movie, not great movie, imo) my non poo poo post opnion about Avatar: The Way of Water is: The stuff in the trailer didn't excited me but I will retain an open mind. In particular I would like to know about the plot of the movie. Teagone, you clearly have been following this stuff - has Cameron discussed the plot at all (this isn't a weird dig or anything, I'm genuinely curious).
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May 9, 2022 21:59
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smug n stuff posted:Teagone, you clearly have been following this stuff - has Cameron discussed the plot at all (this isn't a weird dig or anything, I'm genuinely curious). Nothing really explicit, only that the narrative thrust of the film follows Jake and his family. Neytiri and Jake have four children now that I think are going to be the primary focus of the sequels. Quaritch is back (lol), and Sigourney too, but not sure in what capacity. Maybe she's like a spirit guide in the glowing trees? Pretty sure Quaritch is one of the the soldier avatars we see in the trailer; the tatted up one (same tattoo human Quaritch had) with the crew cut. Guessing the other soldier avatar with him is Wainfleet (the guy who screams before getting crushed by an alien hammerhead elephant/rhino thing from the first film). Other than that, the only thing I remember reading about potential story developments were rumors elsewhere back from like 2013 where there's na'vi civil war brewing over a hybrid leading the omaticaya tribe while humans continue to try to exploit the resources of Pandora. I don't think that's true though now, based on what we see in the teaser. Something of note is that Avatar 2, 3, 4, and 5 were developed to be standalone, so there won't be any cliffhangers or sequel hooks between them. Each film will be a self-contained narrative that has a clear ending. So, separate stories that share an overall arc beginning with the first film. [edit] Oh yeah, 1 of the 4 children is an adopted human who was born on the human military base from the first movie. But I guess that's easily culled from the teaser, sort of. teagone fucked around with this message at 23:28 on May 9, 2022 |
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May 9, 2022 23:11
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Man that teaser left a lot of questions, and none of them good. This just does not look like a good movie at all. It very much screams designed by committee and is heavily group focused as gently caress.
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May 9, 2022 23:14
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I said come in! posted:Man that teaser left a lot of questions, and none of them good. This just does not look like a good movie at all. It very much screams designed by committee and is heavily group focused as gently caress. How so
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May 9, 2022 23:38
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I said come in! posted:It very much screams designed by committee and is heavily group focused as gently caress. I fail to see why it would be. Sure, the first one earned a poo poo-ton upon release, but it's been nothing but skepticism and bad word-of-mouth for 13 years. These sequels exist because James Cameron landed on them as some career-defining passion project. Studios would probably rather James Cameron did literally anything else, but the man earned billions over decades, so he has a ton of leeway to make his cat person movies. They easily might suck, but "designed by committee" and "group-focused as gently caress" aren't why. James Cameron is the committee, and he's famously thorny about input from anyone. If these movies are gonna suck, it'll probably be how the Star Wars prequels suck: an out-of-touch director returned to a successful project decades later, this time with zero pushback because of all his clout, and made something lousy with his worst tendencies.
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May 9, 2022 23:48
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teagone posted:Something of note is that Avatar 2, 3, 4, and 5 were developed to be standalone, so there won't be any cliffhangers or sequel hooks between them. Each film will be a self-contained narrative that has a clear ending. So, separate stories that share an overall arc beginning with the first film. Thanks for the response. This is interesting to me—that Cameron believes that Pandora is interesting enough as a setting that it itself will be attractive to audiences on its own for four separate movies. Do the Avatar Stans ITT agree? Personally in terms of sci-fi settings I find it much less interesting qua setting than the Star Wars universe, or that of The Expanse, or Foundation or even, hell, doctor who. I guess it just feels quite limited, like I’m not excited to ~explore~ Pandora. Maybe it’s just a question of taste, but I’m curious what people find compelling about the setting given that’s the constant in these sequels.
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May 10, 2022 00:16
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smug n stuff posted:Thanks for the response. This is interesting to me—that Cameron believes that Pandora is interesting enough as a setting that it itself will be attractive to audiences on its own for four separate movies. It's a pretty unoriginal setting that actually barrows pretty heavily from video games, especially JRPGs. Most people just have zero exposure to anything interesting. Their fantasy / sci-fi begins and ends with Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Ring movies and that is it. So when something like Avatar comes along, it looks mindblowing and unique, when in reality it isn't at all.
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May 10, 2022 00:20
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Uhh I like it specifically because it reminds me of those JRPG settings to be honest
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May 10, 2022 00:45
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Thats fair, but its not the groundbreaking unique world that James Cameron says it is.
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May 10, 2022 00:47
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Related to what James Cameron thinks of Avatar: there's an argument that goes like: 1. People all over the internet say that Avatar isn't very memorable 2. The fact that people are saying this, and thus *talking about* Avatar, proves that it is, in fact, memorable. This seems faulty to me. People keep talking about Avatar, not necessarily because it is a memorable movie (although it may be!), but because it was made by James Cameron, who is worth billions of dollars, and who has used some of that wealth to keep Avatar in the cultural conversation by producing these sequels.
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May 10, 2022 00:55
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I said come in! posted:Thats fair, but its not the groundbreaking unique world that James Cameron says it is. It is as far as movie theater experiences in 3D go. Majority of the movie going audience probably doesn't play many games that would share similar traits to whatever Avatar has to offer.
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May 10, 2022 00:58
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smug n stuff posted:Thanks for the response. This is interesting to me—that Cameron believes that Pandora is interesting enough as a setting that it itself will be attractive to audiences on its own for four separate movies. Avatar 4 & 5 aren't a sure thing anyways. Cameron has said if 2 & 3 aren't successful, he's not gonna bother with finishing out the series. That's part of the reason why he's developed the films to be self-contained stories.
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May 10, 2022 01:01
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What happens if lolmageddon comes and Avatar 2 only makes $5 million. Do they release Avatar 3 or shelve the whole thing?
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May 10, 2022 01:11
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Gatts posted:What happens if lolmageddon comes and Avatar 2 only makes $5 million. Do they release Avatar 3 or shelve the whole thing? Probably direct to Disney+ I guess, lol. The editing process on Avatar 3 hasn't even started yet last I read, so who knows, maybe it'll be delayed and won't be released for another 13 years anyways.
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May 10, 2022 01:16
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I said come in! posted:Thats fair, but its not the groundbreaking unique world that James Cameron says it is. Oh; yeah, for sure.
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May 10, 2022 01:16
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Gatts posted:What happens if lolmageddon comes and Avatar 2 only makes $5 million. Do they release Avatar 3 or shelve the whole thing? Avatar 3 is already in post production, so that is coming no matter what. The remaining movies just get shelved. I doubt Avatar 2 and 3 do poorly in theaters. Then again the Star Wars sequels bombed loving hard for what they are and their expectations. So who knows! Disney is supposedly really unhappy with Star Wars as a theater experience, so avatar is going to be their new focus.
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May 10, 2022 01:17
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I think the more interesting question is: what constitutes success for movies like this? Wikipedia indicates that the budget for this was $250 million, roughly on par with the first one. Obviously Cameron's wealth insulates him somewhat from minor losses, but will he keep going if the movie "only" makes $500 million? Of course none of us knows, but it will be interesting to see it play out.
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May 10, 2022 01:18
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Zack Snyder's Avatar 4 Who am I kidding, it'd probably be JJ Abrams
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May 10, 2022 01:24
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I said come in! posted:Then again the Star Wars sequels bombed loving hard for what they are and their expectations. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt2488496/?ref_=bo_se_r_1
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May 10, 2022 01:27
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smug n stuff posted:I think the more interesting question is: what constitutes success for movies like this? Wikipedia indicates that the budget for this was $250 million, roughly on par with the first one. Obviously Cameron's wealth insulates him somewhat from minor losses, but will he keep going if the movie "only" makes $500 million? Of course none of us knows, but it will be interesting to see it play out. Realistically break even for all 4 sequels is probably close to 4b gross worldwide, if not higher. It really depends on their modeling but anything less than 2.5b for Avatar 2 after 2 months and they might start hedging on 4/5. But really 2.5b seems almost inevitable given its popularity in China. All 3 star wars films grossed 180m in total in China while Avatar grossed 260m lmao. The Chinese market is literally 10x bigger than it was in 2009. It might be the first film to break 1b just in China. Also Avatar 1 is getting a release in the US, maybe overseas too, in September just to get everyone juiced up.
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May 10, 2022 01:50
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smug n stuff posted:They got worse of course but TFA absolutely did not, almost a billion just domestic. And all of them hit $1B global. Not that bad. I internal leaked rumors i've heard is that Disney was at least happy with TFA, but disappointed with the rest. So that is why LucasFilms axed a lot of their theater movie plans and changed some stuff around to be TV shows. Obi-wan for example was going to be a feature length big budget movie originally. But honestly i'm glad that one is going to be a 6 part TV show instead. And then there was that planned trilogy with the writers of Game of Thrones that got axed.
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May 10, 2022 02:00
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I said come in! posted:I internal leaked rumors i've heard is that Disney was at least happy with TFA, but disappointed with the rest. So that is why LucasFilms axed a lot of their theater movie plans and changed some stuff around to be TV shows. Obi-wan for example was going to be a feature length big budget movie originally. But honestly i'm glad that one is going to be a 6 part TV show instead. And then there was that planned trilogy with the writers of Game of Thrones that got axed. Obviously I don't want to poo poo up the Avatar thread too long with Star Wars chat but didn't a lot of the shifting strategy have to do with how hard Solo flopped?
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May 10, 2022 02:01
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Yes, the SW sequels "bombed" in a total Hollywood accounting way. They earned profits, just not as overwhelmingly as Disney hoped. I'm sure they recouped production cost and probably the upfront cost of acquiring Lucasfilm at this point. They're just shifting to whatever vein feels richest, which is currently the Filoni content and not the Abrams content. Disney is not hurting and doesn't care.smug n stuff posted:Related to what James Cameron thinks of Avatar: there's an argument that goes like: This is true, but I also think it is more memorable than the average blockbuster-y sci-fi action thing. I couldn't name a single human character from, like, Transformers 3, or anyone/anything from Battleship or Independence Day: Resurgence or whatever. Most big-budget tentpole things I can think of from the past decade or so roll off like water, outside of MCU poo poo that's so serialized you kind of need to remember it to follow along. But I'd guess that most people actually *do* remember Jakesully or how Avatars work or what Pandora is like. They probably remember the scarred-up army guy villain or the dragon riding or even the environmental themes, which is way more than I can say for the majority of similar event movies.
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May 10, 2022 02:05
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Xealot posted:This is true, but I also think it is more memorable than the average blockbuster-y sci-fi action thing. I think this is a misperception, at least if I take a fairly tight interpretation of "similar event movies" Looking at Avatar's budget, here's a list of the 20 movies that are closest to it in inflation-adjusted budget, from costliest to cheapest: Avengers: Endgame Avengers: Infinity War Titanic Spider-Man 3 Justice League Tangled Harry Potter 6 John Carter 2012 Waterworld Pirates of the Caribbean 2 BvS Solo SW: TFA SW: RoS SW: TLJ King Kong 2005 Spider-man 2 Furious 7 The Chronicles of Narnia 2 X-men: The Last Stand I would bet that for most people, Avatar is not more memorable than any of these (with the caveat that I'm talking about people who actually watched the movie for stuff like John Carter) e: maybe not F7? Like, taking your list of memorable items, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure most people would remember the a) main character's name b) central conceit of the film and c) the setting for all of these movies. So I argue that Avatar is not more memorable than similarly-sized blockbusters. I'm open to being convinced otherwise though. smug n stuff fucked around with this message at 02:28 on May 10, 2022 |
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May 10, 2022 02:23
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Visually it looks amazing. I want to take a scuba diving vacation in a tropical country now. The images looks so crisp. And hey look, colour! I'm not super excited for more Sam Worthington or a family-against all odds plot (which is just a guess) buuuuut either way I am on board.
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May 10, 2022 02:27
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What happens is these companies base their whole bottom line for the year around these very few tentpole films, and they pour a ton of time and resources into them. So if they come out and are just moderately profitable, they don't go "oh well we made a few hundred million dollars, that's not bad!", it's a huge disappointment because it makes an entire year's financials look like poo poo compared to what they could've been with a $2b blockbuster. It's about opportunity cost really, they only have a few shots at it per year and they need those shots to hit.
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May 10, 2022 02:37
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https://twitter.com/A_B_Allen/status/1523748903295721473 I loved all those movies and struggled to remember the main character names, lmao. Especially Brenden Fraser's character in The Mummy. I loving really love that movie. I remember Jake Sully though. I remembered Murph from Intersetellar, the daughter. But otherwise I had to look up all the other ones. RIP me.
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May 10, 2022 03:11
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teagone posted:https://twitter.com/A_B_Allen/status/1523748903295721473 Hey i'm friends with that guy IRL.
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May 10, 2022 03:12
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Tell that guy he sucks for not remembering Rick O’ Connell. They say his name a billion times during it. I just watched it today.
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May 10, 2022 03:23
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Lastdancer posted:IMAX trailer download Is this just movie theater people pulling trailers off whatever system they get downloaded to?
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May 10, 2022 03:25
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smug n stuff posted:I think this is a misperception, at least if I take a fairly tight interpretation of "similar event movies" The most striking thing about this list to me is that only Waterworld is an original IP. If Avatar has characters and a setting as recognizable as as bunch of deep-into-the-franchise sequels and movie adaptations of previously popular media, I'd say that's a point in its favor. I always found the "no lasting cultural impact" thing to be a strangely specific take. You can't call it poorly made, or unpopular, or particularly unoriginal (just look at that list lol), it can't be a "cult classic" because it was already huge. The only knock against it seems to be that it's not still top-of-mind because they didn't make the sequels and never-ending multimedia franchise sooner. And now the sequels are here. I think "no lasting cultural impact" really means something like "isn't an all-time classic," which is about the only negative thing you can fairly say about it.
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May 10, 2022 03:28
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Prolonged Panorama posted:The most striking thing about this list to me is that only Waterworld is an original IP. If Avatar has characters and a setting as recognizable as as bunch of deep-into-the-franchise sequels and movie adaptations of previously popular media, I'd say that's a point in its favor. It is not the case that Jake Sully and Pandora are as well-remembered as the franchise movies on that list (imo). The poster I was quoting said that Avatar was *more* memorable than similarly-sized blockbusters, so I wanted to compare it to movies with similar budgets, and show that those movies were *at least as* memorable as Avatar. I also think that the “cultural impact” arguments need to be seen for what they are: as you say, a comment on the planned existence of the sequels, not on Avatar itself. It’s to say “isn’t it strange that Cameron’s spent so much time and money making these sequels?” Not “Avatar was bad,” necessarily. I think if you ask these people how they feel about Avatar outside of the context of the sequels they would respond positively if not like incredibly enthusiastically. Most people liked the movie!
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May 10, 2022 03:40
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I think the “no one remembers Avatar” meme is just rooted in how incredibly gigantic the movie was at the time of release. It dominated world culture for several months, and then it was over. The film was very much a theater spectacle, so of course it wasn’t going to have a lasting cultural impact on home video. I remember leaving the theater in complete awe at what I had seen, but also never felt the slightest need to watch it outside of a theater. I will be surprised if 2 and 3 don’t recapture much of that energy, simply because nothing since has come close to the visceral spectacle that was seeing Avatar in 3D at the theater.
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May 10, 2022 03:51
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teagone posted:https://twitter.com/A_B_Allen/status/1523748903295721473 Yeah, same. I know Jake Sully from Avatar and Cooper from Interstellar, and the rest... nope! ...I remember Brendan Fraser's name in Encino Man though... it was Link!
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May 10, 2022 04:18
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