UPDATE 7:20 AM: We just learned that James Cameron is telling Hollywood that Fox made a “huge” donation to his environmental green fund, and in return he committed to making the Avatar sequel and threequel his next films. That also caused him to withdraw from Sony Pictures’ Cleopatra with Angelina Jolie, even though he’d told the studio that he’d always wanted to film the Queen Of The Nile’s story.
WEDNESDAY 6 AM: With this move, Twentieth Century Fox effectively ties up James Cameron through December 2015, apparently putting a hold on Sony Pictures’ hopes for the director to helm a fast-tracked Cleopatra starring Angelina Jolie in 2012:
LOS ANGELES (October 27, 2010) __ Moving forward with the most anticipated films of the next decade, Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairmen Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman announced today that Academy Award®-winning filmmaker James Cameron has agreed to make AVATAR 2 and 3 as his next films.
Cameron, who had always viewed AVATAR as the creation of a new world and mythology, will begin work on the scripts early next year with an eye towards commencing production later in 2011. Cameron will decide if he will shoot the films back-to-back after he completes the scripts, but the release of the first, as yet untitled sequel, is targeted for December 2014, with the third film contemplated for a December 2015 release.
AVATAR 2 & 3 will be produced by Cameron and Jon Landau for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment.
“AVATAR is not only the highest grossing movie of all time, it is a created universe based on the singular imagination and daring of James Cameron, who also raised the consciousness of people worldwide to some of the greatest issues facing our planet,” said Rothman and Gianopulos. “We had no higher priority, and can feel no greater joy, than enabling Jim to continue and expand his vision of the world of AVATAR. This is a great day in the history of our company, and we thank Jim, Jon Landau, Rae Sanchini and all of their team and all of our Fox colleagues throughout the world, who have made this possible.”
Commented Cameron: “It is a rare and remarkable opportunity when a filmmaker gets to build a fantasy world, and watch it grow, with the resources and partnership of a global media company. AVATAR was conceived as an epic work of fantasy – a world that audiences could visit, across all media platforms, and this moment marks the launch of the next phase of that world. With two new films on the drawing boards, my company and I are embarking on an epic journey with our partners at Twentieth Century Fox. Our goal is to meet and exceed the global audience’s expectations for the richness of AVATAR’s visual world and the power of the storytelling. In the second and third films, which will be self contained stories that also fulfill a greater story arc, we will not back off the throttle of AVATAR’s visual and emotional horsepower, and will continue to explore its themes and characters, which touched the hearts of audiences in all cultures around the world. I’m looking forward to returning to Pandora, a world where our imaginations can run wild.”
“It is very exciting to be teaming again with our partners at Fox to give audiences the opportunity to return to Pandora,” said producer Jon Landau. “With the first movie, Jim only scratched the surface of the stories he wants to tell and the creatures and world he wants to create. Now we will continue his vision.”
AVATAR is the highest grossing film of all time, taking in nearly $2.8 billion in worldwide box office. It is also the top-selling Blu-ray disc of all time. AVATAR won Golden Globe® awards for Best Motion Picture and Best Director; and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won Oscars for art direction, visual effects and cinematography.
AVATAR was written by Cameron from an idea he nurtured for over a decade, while working on the technology necessary to realize its wholly imagined world. Working with Joe Letteri and his team at Peter Jackson’s WETA Digital, Cameron created a fully immersive 3D cinematic experience of a new kind, where revolutionary technology that was invented to make the film disappeared into the emotion of the characters and the epic nature of the story.
AVATAR 2 & 3 will mark Cameron’s latest collaborations with Twentieth Century Fox, a relationship that spans 25 years and marks one of the most successful filmmaker-studio alliances in motion picture history. Cameron and Fox first joined forces in 1985 for Aliens, which became a sci-fi classic. Next came The Abyss, which revolutionized visual effects technology; and True Lies, a blockbuster starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 1996, Fox greenlighted Cameron’s Titanic, which became the most successful film in history, and won a record-breaking eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Lightstorm partner Rae Sanchini negotiated the deal on Lightstorm’s behalf.
YAWN. The first film bored me to tears, no way will I sit through another two.
Good. Very good.
The story behind Avatar was good but not great. What makes this movie fantastic is the imaginary universe that they story takes place in. Cameron may be a screaming Liberal, but you can’t deny that the man is good at his craft.
This comment is EXACTLY right! It is refreshing to see someone actually hit the nail on the head in regards to Avatar. It was a groundbreaking movie in terms of visual effects, and Cameron is obviously a visionary, but the story was rather weak in comparison. It was a great movie, but not one of the best. On par with Inception. And a filmmaker’s personal political views has nothing to do with the quality of the film unless he allows it to dilute his product, which Cameron comes near to doing with the one-two punch of ridiculous, thematically blunt lines he delivered in that script.
I wish Cameron would be like Tolkien. When Tolkien was asked if his story was a metaphor for events going on in the world, he claimed it was just a story. I can’t unfortunately get Cameron’s politics out of my head when I watch this movie which I confess to enjoying immensely which dilutes said enjoyment.
You offer a compelling point about Tolkien, whose experiences as a lieutenant in the trenches of World War I would eventually impact his storytelling. This is according to research conducted on behalf of The History Channel, where I oversaw an hour on Tolkien and LOTR. Tolkien tended to remain mum about how his political world views affected his written depictions of fantasy.
I haven’t been exposed to Mr. Cameron’s politics, and very much enjoyed Avatar.
The graphics were phenomenal. The world looked like a knock off on World of Warcraft’s universe but it was brought to life in a beautiful way. Unfortunately the story line was a knock off of old ’90’s Steven Seagal flicks and it was hard to ignore. Hopefully the future Cameron endeavors will be a little more believable.
IF NOT FOR THE THREE D IN THIS MOVIE IT WOULD NOT BE WATCHABLE
cleashey and crap for story line that has been rehashed many times before with a few changes. I would not have stayed if not for the 3d effects.
You are so blind my friend. Stop lying to yourself, you know you love Avatar but humans are humans and they love to jump on bandwagons. You talk about originality, but pretty soon originality is going to run out. Also, in history stories are told, and that through time, gets told again and again, and through history stories change but still holds the sam ideas. The story Avatar is teling is the same story as Pocahontas. Avatar is keeping that story alive by changing it to fit our needs that come in a movie. And our needs from a movie changes over time.
And you cannot lie against the facts, Avatar is the NUMBER 1 movie of all time!!!!!
This is stupid. Avatar spent nearly a decade in development, long before WoW was ever a single gob of money in Blizzard’s eye. All these idiots taking screenshots of WoW and comparing them to Avatar? What about Roger Dean, Frazetta and Dali and all those manga artists? Did they somehow travel into the future and steal WoW’s visual look too? That’d be an interesting paradox even if they could have…
I should think next some fool will argue that Avatar stole its name from the Nickelodeon series.
I AGREE, BUT WHAT I FOUND MOST IMPRESSIVE WERE THE UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHIES AND IDEAS. ONE HAD TO ACTUALLY BE INTELLIGENT TO UNDERSTAND THIS MOVIE AND TRULY APPRECIATE IT. I DIDN’T WATCH IT FOR THE LONGEST TIME, BECAUSE IT SEEMED OVERHYPED AND TOO MAINSTREAM… WHEN I FINALLY WATCHED IT, I WAS PROVEN WRONG, WITH UNBELIEVABLE PHILOSOPHIES ABOUT THE UNSEEN WORLD COMPARABLE TO TOP MOVIES LIKE ”THE FOUNTAIN.” I’VE FOUND THAT THERE ARE 3 GROUPS OF PEOPLE WITH THIS MOVIE. THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND IT FOR WHAT IT IS AND LOVE IT, THOSE WHO WERE BLOWN AWAY SIMPLY BY THE VISUALS BUT DIDN’T ENTIRELY COMPREHEND IT, AND LIKED/LOVED IT, AND THOSE WHO WERE INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING IT, AND THEREFORE NOT LIKING IT.
Filmmakers like James Cameron can’t cater to everybody’s tastes. They can’t all make such award-winning feature films like Jack Ass 3D, another regurgitated vampire movie, another “Saw” movie, and yet Harry Potter flick.
Nope, he didn’t regurgitate any of those films you listed… However, it appears he did regurgitate Dance’s With Wolves, Fern Gully, Pochahontas and a few other films… The sheep ate it up.
I will say that the visuals were very impressive… Story, though, was regurgitated.
There is nothing new under the sun. Even that very phrase. Fiction is an incestuous thing. Everything borrows liberally from somewhere. Even religion and mythology have “stolen” similar concepts.
They’re called archetypes, and all stories follow a very narrow selection of them.
The Stars My Destination, for example, is merely a science fiction version of Count of Monte Cristo. The Forbidden Planet, likewise, stands in for The Tempest.
Star Wars began as an adaptation of a Flash Gordon serial. Lucas basically changed the names and continued from there.
Fuck, you want to talk about Cameron ripping off Disney, then by all means, let’s talk about the Lion King ripping off Hamlet and Kimba the White Lion.
But in every one of those examples, are those works no less classics in their own right? What matters most is the execution of the story, not the originality of its content (although that surely helps).
In comics, we see the origin story of various superheroes get rewritten every 10 years or so. The reason for the different adaptations is not just to bring the title character up to date, but also in an effort to improve on weaker executions and put a new spin on tired elements.
Ultimate Spiderman retired the campy, pseudoscience factor, a relic of the 60’s, and took the character back to his teenage years. They are in the midst of doing this to Superman and Wonder Woman too, as I understand it (although the results of which we will not yet know.)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: good artists borrow. Great artists steal. If time remembers Avatar as a great work of art, it will not be because of the unoriginality of the plot or even the dry acting, but its stunning technical accomplishments and immersive world.
Its hard to read a lot of these hater’s posts… Ive done quite a bit of acting and some film making and i encourage anyone to do better or even come up with a half ass story line in which it keeps people intrigued. foolish assholes commenting just to speak some bull shit.. but that 2 percent of you who didnt like the movie should go comment on something else.. why are you wasting your time.. and I would bet all the cash ive made on the fact that sometime or another they will watch both sequels to this movie.. i guarantee it haha
So yeah, you know there were 7 harry potter books, and each of them is getting filmed right? Its not like they are just spitting out HP movies like they’re Police Academy.
To be fair, they DID divide the 7th up into two films. I wouldn’t say that it wasn’t totally unnecessary except for the fact that longer books have been successfully abridged in one film before.
Kinda like how Blizzard figured out they could make even more money by shipping 1/3 of a complete game when they became famous for *complete* products.
It was cute the first time I saw it when it was called “Pocahantas”
It was cute the first time someone made that joke.
I thought the same thing! lol
Aw, ya beat me to the punch!!!
lol
Actually thought it was more like FERNGULLY: The Last Rainforest from back in 1992
uh it was not like pocahontas….it was like fern gully
I saw Avatar because of its breakthrough in 3D technology – and it was beautiful – but the novelty wore off. On DVD it is just another mediocre sci-fi movie.
I don’t see myself shelling out $14+ to see Pandora again.
James Cameron – Please make another Aliens movie in IMAX 3D. I bet you have formulated some ideas for that series over the years.
Great! More 3-dimensional films of probable marginal content quality and heavy on political agenda from a one-dimensional director.
so, what will these sequels be? another invasion into the peaceful smurfs from the greedy imperialists? is only more of the same crap, this guy was great in aliens and terminator, period, 3D does not save the same stupid drivel of antiamericanism, I had enough of this with first avatar, our current government is a serious contender to this matter. Fox use the money in a better story!
If you can’t deal with the fact that the US are in Iraq for the oil then you had better get a grip. 911 is scientifically proven to be an inside job designed to provide an excuse for the ‘War on terror’ rubbish.
Low IQ inbred morons like yourself are what’s wrong with the world.
exactly! i saw avatar and commented to my wife that this was “dancing with wolves” on steroids. green is the agenda, and that is fine…i am not going to support any more of cameron’s pantheistic, anti-american clap-trap either. going to the movies, for me, is a chore…and a waste of perfectly good money. why support the boors and boobs like charlie sheen who make millions, preach to us little people about what we should and should not do, and then laugh as they get away with stuff that we average joes cannot.
Exactly! The sequel will have an invasion of Xenomorphs and then an asteroid is going to hit and then and then there will be this great 3-D scene from the asteroid’s point of view and it’ll be all whoooooosh! and then their faith in Gaia saves them all.
The prequel will deal with the politics of the galactic senate and trade sanctions that lead up to a committee exploring the idea of an invasion of planets that could provide the materials they need in order to save the empire.
That’s OK, I can always feel the talentless, low IQ Fail-field that emanates from losers like yourself in the cinema.
Stay away and improve the movie-going experience for those that actually have brains and artistic appreciation.
AVATAR is not only the highest grossing movie of all time, it is a created universe based on the singular imagination and daring of James Cameron,
NOT! Just google Roger Dean, the artist who did many of the old Yes album covers. Looks like a rip off to me.
http://www.google.com/images?q=Roger+Dean+artwork&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&rlz=1I7ADFA_en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1165&bih=627
FOX needs these movies ASAP after this disastrous year. Almost every movie is dripping red ink especially THE A-TEAM.
What do they have left? The runaway train wreck movie UNSTOPPABLE?
They could just as easily call it FOX FILMS 2010 cuz this year has been a train wreck.
Maybe GULLIVER’S TRAVELS and NARNIA 3 will do okay. But sheesh even those are very expensive bets.
Fully agree… any more of this ham-fisted tale of a white man going native and then being a BETTER native is ugly, grotesque and with wonder of it (3D, video game tech animation) now blown… can these really be good? More often than not the back-to-back shoot result in awful films…
Ok buddy, if that movie bored, then maybe you shouldn’t be watching movies period.
Avatar didn’t do anything, 3D was out years before, and Avatar’s 3d was awful…. the movie was lame…. it’s just that all the brainwashed people just believe and repeat what they hear on tv…. sad
The storyline is “Disney’s fern gully”! you cant build on that. As for the special effects, been there seen that so unless they are giving away tickets to other movies instead of 3-D glasses I’ll pass. Fox has one giant, money losing blue turd to flush.
Yup, money losing indeed. They must really be licking their financial wounds.
Seriously? This movie has done that well? I thought it sucked. It was “Ferngully”, the major motion picture. I only went to see it because I wanted to check out the 3D. Now it’s “been there, done that.” I have no interest in seeing any more installments.
I can’t believe it’s that popular. There is no way this movie was as good as, say, Lord of the Rings or the Dark Knight. I’d rather see the Simpsons Movie again than this one.
Are you kidding me? It grossed $3 BILLION worldwide. The sequels are not a surprise, no matter how much the original failed in being a quality movie.
To paraphrase:” No one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the theatre-going public”. Techno-porn “Dances with Smurfs”
it grossed 3 billion but it cost 1.5 billion to make so he really “only” made about 1.5 billion dollars. know the difference between what it grossed and what it profited. story sucked. and who’s to say that he is the only one to use that technology in future films. if more people use the technology to make movies with, his will become part of the pool and will have to compete on story as well which = massive failure. 2014 is a long time from now. it will be a success if the story is way better. good luck cameron i hope it will work.
it cost just over 300 mill to make so made a lot more than it cost ,why do you people continue to put shit on thingd you dont understand or dont like, you have a chioce dont like it dont watch it ,dont push your views on other people allow them to make the decision for themselves i liked the movie seen no coaprison to other movies at all including steven b-grade segal , stop being farking politicians and allow people thier fredom of chioce through thier own eyes and minds
Patrick… Avatar’s success is a surprise to you? Where do you guys come from?
They come from the land where any hint of environmentalism means baby-killing Jesus-hating America-loathing babykillingJesushaters. And since they’re wingnuts, it’s inconceivable to them that anyone could possibly disagree with their sacrosanct opinions. People who make these comments aren’t really talking about the movie, they’re talking about their political beliefs.
Josh –
You seem to suffer from the same narrowness view, albeit from a different angle, since you seem to be claiming that anyone conservative, or religious, who doesn’t swoon for Al Gore, PETA and Planned Parenthood, can’t possibly enjoy this film. Well, I’m living proof that you’re as narrow-minded as the people you’re berating.
You are an idiot, and a bigot at that. Some people don’t want anti-capitalist, environmental whacko, anti-military, anti-corporate drivel shoved down their throats when going to be “entertained”. I liked the movie, but did not care for the “message”, and thought it was over-hyped and over-rated.
I wonder what the film would have looked like with a pro-capitalist, anti-environmental, pro-military (it wasn’t anti-military though, but attacked private security forces), pro-corporate movie would have been like? WOuld people like Tommcgtx still use tired violent metaphorical phrases like “shoved down their throats” if the movie had been Gordon Gecko in space? For some reason I feel that he would be okay with a message that he agrees with being prominent in a film. It isn’t a bad thing for even an action film to have some underlying beliefs involved. It’s called being didactic. I will give tommcgtx props for not mentioning anti-American sentiment, because goodness knows no other country ever had capitalistic ventures that might also fall under the critique of this movie.
I have been around long enough to see all these movies and I have just one thing to say. It is just a movie like all the others. You go watch them and go home and forget them or not because in reality all it is a movie nothing less nothing more. No one sees the same thing the same way. Like it love it hate get over it. IT IS JUST A MOVIE!
Come on… the ONLY thing Ferngully shares with Avatar is forest background… the story itself is totally different.
newsflash kiddo, EVERYTHING has been done before. avatar is to ferngully as the dark knight is to every other super hero movie ever made, just as every romantic comedy is just the same as every other romantic comedy ever made. cameron took a story that had been told and reinvented it in an entirely new and utterly entertaining way. trash it all you want because you’re going to have to eat your words when the second and third movies come out and change movie history once again.
A lot of the “highest-grossing” part has to do with the high price of the 3D tickets. It would be interesting to see how much money it would have made without the added money from the 3D sales.
Lets the movie snobs begin to cry about this…
Too bad millions of people enjoyed the movie.
I agree. It was 2.5 hours of fun and I loved it. Why do some people have to be so mean? I thought Lord of the Rings (all 3) were and still are a giant bore. I paid $7.50 to take a nap. However, I still concede that millions love it and technically it is a work of art.
brian i think u are a bore
I AGREE – THE 3 LOTR’S WERE ALL THE SAME MOVIE… EACH ONE JUST HAD A BIGGER WAR SCENE TO MAKE IT BETTER THAN THE PREDECESOR. THE FIRST ONE WAS DECENT, THE REST LAID A GOOD FOUNDATION TO DRIVE THE DREAMS I HAD WHILE SLEEPING IN THE THEATER SEAT. I THINK THE SCENE IN ‘CLERKS 2,’ DOES AN EXCELLENT JOB EXPLAINING THE LACKLUSTER LOTR TRILOGY LOL
That’s not saying much. Millions of stupid sheeple are dumb lol. Avatar was a POS, and I literally loose respect for people when they say it’s their favorite movie.
The story was only so-so, but the movie was visually amazing. As for your lost respect… all I can say is learn the difference between “lose” and “loose” before you criticize others… I’m just saying.
Millions of people are sheeple?
Oh, you must be referring to the Tea Party and the rabid right, no doubt?
But I digress. I always find it amazing that people think stories are radically different from one another. I believe it was Joseph Campbell, followed by a cavalcade of others, who suggested that at the very heart of the matter there are only something like seven or eight “core stories” — what makes them look different is mere window dressing.
So, yes, “Avatar” does sniff a bit like “Ferngully” or “Dances with Wolves” and if had been a novel I would have shrugged it off as unoriginal and boring and tossed it into the remainder bin.
BUT — and it’s a big but — movies are about moving images — duh! — and what Cameron has done is taken a well-visited “core story” and dressed it up into something that, in the totality of a motion picture, became magical and fierce and awe-inducing.
Did he make too much of the 3-D aspect? Sure. Yet the movie, in the end, holds up as a whole. Ok story line. Waaay above average visuals/cinematography/special effects. Maybe not the best flick of all time, but certainly cracking the Top 100 by nature of vision and technical wizardry.
Just compare it to another “hit” from this year — say, “Dinner with Schmucks” or “G Force” — and you will see that Avatar is a modern marvel by comparison, a movie people will talk about in 10 years, unlike, say, “Schmucks” or the rodent movie.
Left something out…
Those that I refer to in my previous rant also tend to make their living using a magnetic “Pizza” sign on their 12 year old Fiesta while studying “Medieval Turkish Art History” at a State University giving them the ability to teach Art in middle school for 30 years until the retire to a double wide. This finally gives them their dream opportunity to write opinion pieces for 6th rate sites run by 20 year old underachievers wearing heavy metal tee shirts.
But don’t worry, I’m sure you’re different.
ITS RESPONSES LIKE THESE THAT TELL ME SO MUCH ABOUT THE PERSON BEHIND THE COMMENT. HATE TO SOUND LIKE A PRICK, BUT I IMMEDIATELY HAVE AN IMAGE OF AN UNINTELLIGENT BEING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COMPUTER SCREEN. ONE HAS TO BE SO WELL VERSED IN PHILOSOPHY (EASTERN THOUGHT, ANCIENT, MODERN, HOPI TO MAYAN PROPHECIES… THE LIST GOES ON) TO TRULY UNDERSTAND THE UNDERLYING THEMES IN THIS MOVIE – IT WASN’T THE STORYLINE, IT WAS EVERYTHING BEHIND IT THAT MADE IT SO GREAT.
Get over yourself. It’s not like people who like Transformers 2 or something. Avatar was a great, not excellent movie that got people out of the house and enjoying something for 2.5 hours. Definitely had mind-blowing vfx. Looking forward to seeing the 2nd and 3rd films. Over 4 years to deliver is a long time though.
How exactly does one “literally loose respect”? Do you have chunks of some physical form of respect attached to your body that you then rend free and throw away?
you mean too bad millions of people feel into the hype until it was too late to get their money back, ive yet to talk to a single friend that raves about avatar the same way they rave about the dark knight, i highly believe the 2nd will take in less then the 1st one, the only reason the 1st made so much was hype, and curiosity over camerons return to fictional film making.
Oh you’re right, no one liked the movie. It just got an 8.5 score on imdb out of pity.
Get over yourself. It’s fine that you didn’t like the film, but don’t presume to speak for everyone else by making statements that are ridiculous.
Wow, bold prediction that the second will take in less than the first. The first only grossed $750 million domestically.
Money and attendance do not denote greatness. Just look at the president lol. No seriously though, the plot was horribly thin and completely predictable. Only ‘one’ spot on the whole planet for the ore and it happens to be where these things live? Right. Good 3D and cinematography, bad everything else. Its cool though, some people think and judge things with logic, others with emotion. Take the replier who asked, ‘why are people so mean….’. If truth is meaniness then some of you need to standby for a butt whupping. Cameron and the weak @$$ideologies he supports are about to meet reality.
#2 will be made for sure, but it’s over man, move on. Dances with wolves part deaux (Avatar) was okay at best, “#2” will flop or plop and they will yank “#3”. As we will have seen it all before time and time again. This ain’t no starwars… There’s no Avatar religion and there won’t be.
Avatar was nothing but a bloated, overrated cartoon. And when you adjust for inflation, the gross doesn’t come close to other big movies, including Star Wars and Gone With The Wind. Avatar 2 and 3 will be a pair of big jokes.
How do you compare Avatar with Gone with the Wind? Were you alive when Gone with the Wind was in theaters? For that matter, have you even bothered seeing the movie all the way through?
You mean the Gone with the Wind which was re-released 8 times in the span of the last 70 years?
Or the Star Wars which has had 2 theatrical releases since it’s premier in the 70’s
You’re comparing those to Avatar which has only had one release?
And for the record, even adjusted for inflation, Avatar’s Box Office gross still beats BOTH Gone with the Wind’s and Star Wars’ initial single-run release Box Office grosses.
Why don’t you wait until Avatar get’s re-released 6 or 7 more times over the next 60 years before you start comparing it to films that had that many runs at the Box Office?
It’s actually already been re-released once this past summer and it didn’t do so hot. They’re re-releasing the director’s cut on dvd later this year, and I hear they’re releasing a 3D dvd sometime in the future.
We don’t really have to wait that long. If you compare first run to first run, Gone with the Wind was more popular. In 1939 the U.S. had 131 million people. In 2010 it has 310 million people. After adjusting the first runs for inflation and factoring in the fact that there are now almost 200 million more people in the U.S., I believe you can arrive at the answer. You can also add in the fact that the movie theatres were able to charge even more for the 3D experience of Avatar. Not a dollar more, but sometimes twice as much as the going rate. Gone with the Wind sold more tickets to more people, period. Not only that, but they did it with only 131 million people.
Avatar beats them worldwide EVEN counting every re-release properly adjusted… GWTW total lifetime worldwide gross barely adjusts to below $2bn… New Hope is below $2.2bn and Titanic is about $2.5bn
Actually, AVATAR has had two releases already… They put the “Special Edition” in theaters at the end of the summer. I don’t disagree with your point, just your facts.
If you followed the box office you would know that the grosses from second release of Avatar in August were not added to the original Avatar’s totals.
Yep, you’re right thank you, and these people are forgetting that it sunk faster than the Titanic during its second release. Because hardly anyone wanted to go this this slop a second time.
Do you think the initial run and it’s box office totals was all from unique sales? That everyone just went and saw it once?
From what I read, Gone With The Wind is by far the box office winner. Gone With the Wind sold 863 million tickets compared to 59 million for Avatar. That is walk-in theater traffic. The population in 1939 was 2.3 billion and today the population is 6.8 billion. Considering that, I’d say that GWTW was a bigger hit upon release.
But don’t feel too bad for Avatar losing, because it has to compete with video games which rake in more money than any movie ever made. And let’s not forget that GWTW didn’t have to compete with porn!
The hype over record breaking dollar amounts is just marketing ploys. What good would it do for Hollywood to tell the real truth about GWTW? They need to sell new movies.
As far as Blu-ray sales in the future… Avatar will sell them, but so will GWTW, so I don’t see Avatar having the advantage here.
Even though I really enjoyed Avatar, I don’t see it being hailed as a classic 70 years from now to the extent that gwtw is. Money has and has had so many different factors that contribute to its value that you can in no way use gross income to calculate the impact and value of avatar vs gwtw
Well then you read the same old myths. GWTW actually might have sold less tickets than Avatar even in the US alone, not to say about worldwide sales. According to the newspaper articles of its era, GWTW tickets were FAR more overpriced than infamous ‘3D surcharge’, actually 2-3 to 10 (!) times average price depending on the location.
“Avatar” ranks 26th, with more than 76 million tickets sold – impressive, but far behind the 202 million moviegoers who paid to see the all-time champ, “Gone With the Wind.”
A comparison between two films like these is apt to be filled with enough asterisks to rival a list of home run champs in the pre- and post-steroid eras. But it’s worth examining some of the differences – and similarities – between the two flicks.
“GWTW” arrived in 1939 when the country’s population was around 130 million, compared with about 300 million today. With the world on the brink of war, the Civil War epic didn’t approach the international penetration of “Avatar,” which is playing just about anywhere there’s a movie theater, including in China.
The average price of movie ticket in 1939 was about a quarter, while “Avatar” commands as much as $16.50 at Imax theaters. Still, when adjusted for inflation, “GWTW” hauled in more than $1.5 billion domestically, about three times the current North American take of “Avatar,” according to Box Office Mojo.com.
The verdict is out, though, in one key area of comparison: the Academy Awards. “GWTW” notched 13 nominations and took home eight statuettes, including Best Picture.
the facts
AVATAR= 310 mill to make approx
gross= over 790 mill at 14 nov 2010
GWTW=just over 3 mill to make
gross= 198 mil including rereales
gone sux AVATAR Rules long live james cameron
Avatar isn’t to be release 6 or 7 times over the next 60 years, let alone the next 6.
The so-called mythic nature of Avatar is mediocre at best…
I’d like to know how many tickets were actually sold… add in the inflation adjustment and the 3D rape charge, sure the film is high-grossing. But tickets sales in the DOMESTIC box only… foreign box has radically changed since 1977, so that is a disproportionate yardstick to include
Dances With Wolves in outer space.
NO! “The Last Samurai” in outer space!
I thought the Avatar plot was a rip-off of “Star Trek: Insurrection”. Maybe the sequel will be a remake of “Nemesis”.
Are you serious? Insurrection was trash nothing redeamable in it.Avatar was an event film that was absolutely amazing to behold in theater, especially IMAX 3D
What was good in Insurrection? It and Nemesis together always forever killed star trek.
Truth spoken. Insurrection was horrible. Nemesis wouldve been ok as an episode. Not the last movie.
I thought the imax experience was a little too much. I went to regular theatre with a smaller screen and had a better view. I loved the movie for it’s creativity. The story really was fern gully in space though.
“AVATAR is not only the highest grossing movie of all time, it is a created universe based on the singular imagination and daring of James Cameron, who also raised the consciousness of people worldwide to some of the greatest issues facing our planet,”
Just another example of those who mistakenly overblow their sense of self worth and the projects they are attached to. Hey FOX, You & Cameron are making a popcorn flick. Not curing cancer.
You know what though, its funny how FOX on one hand is accused of being too right, then it lumps in with this guy? That doesnt make sense to me. Hmmmmm, maybe fox is just in it for the money.
Jimmy C is a nut case. Avatar was a CGI wrapper over Dances With Wolves and a few other basic, unoriginal themes. Look at the Abyss, same story. Peaceful aliens, evil military want to blow up aliens, humans side with aliens, aliens happy and learn the love mother earth. Sound similar?
The movie was not that good, impressive in 3D but the anti-military, anti-corporation, anti-white themes just get old. But it’s not the intelligent people that are flooding the hype and buying the product. It’s all about money and Jim is all about the money and his ego not the story.
While I didn’t care for Avatar because Cameron’s script was pretty poor, I remain fascinated by the anti-Avatar talking points from the Drudge/Breibart universe.
How EXACTLY would an otherwise rational adult ever conclude that Avatar was “anti-white”?
Well, you can actually google the script and see where he made line entries and original entries denoting the Marines should act like ‘The gun toting NRA rednecks that they are”. So that is how EXACTLY that happens sweetie.
Learn to look before you expose yourself for the bigotry and stereotyping you claim to hate (if you defend this movie), oh wait, too late.
No way can you miss the anti-corporation, anti-military attitude in that movie. As for the Anti-white? Did you notice how Quaritch (or however you spell it) was not black? I also didn’t notice many of the other principles fighting against the Na’vi as being anything else but white? Why was the only multiculturalism evident in Jake Sully (white handicapped male), Trudy(hispanic female), Grace (white female), Lead Researcher (eastern Indian male), all supporting the Na’vi?
It wasn’t anti-white per se but it was certainly pro-blue.
You know what? you’re right, Avatar is the same old re-hashed story with a new shade of lipstick slapped on it. It was interesting to see but it’s no Star Wars, not by a long shot. That movie was ground breaking, and actually fun from start to finish.
you are right, it is ferngully with some special effects, boring!
i will watch the simpsons movie again also before i watch avatar 2 and 3. Heck , i will watch the simpsons movie 14 times before i watch any avatar film again. Ferngully!
The fact that you would attack Avatar as being a rehash of something, of being unoriginal, and then declare your undying love for the Simpsons movie…do you seriously not see the flawed logic there? If you were any kind of fan of the Simpons you would have wished the show an honorable death at least 5 years ago. If Avatar can be reduced to another movie with special effects thrown in, then the Simpsons movie can be reduced to the Simpsons television show with no special effects added, no additional writing or plot other than to what was necessary to chew up the additional theatrical time.
I do have to wonder if Fox and Cameron will find that this well will start running a little dry; so much of Avatar’s business was driven by a curiosity factor, and of course the domino effect of a runaway box office smash (everyone has to see the movie everyone else is seeing, etc…).
I saw the first one and didn’t hate it, but honestly, once you’ve seen the smurf people and the colorful pterodactyls and the flying jellyfish, do you really need to see it again in a sequel? The novelty factor’s gone, the primary thing getting people back into the theater a second time is STORY and CHARACTER, which I think even “Avatar” supporters will concede were not exactly its strong suits.
And, yes the movie’s heart was in the right place with a simple-minded “let’s not rape the planet and commit genocide against native peoples” message, but Fox should really stop pretending this film had any meaningful impact on the discussion of environmental issues — it didn’t. Did anyone hear a single member of Congress mention Pandora or the Na’avi as they completely scuttled energy reform legislation in the immediate wake of the film’s release? Nope — time for more drilling, more oil, more coal, more nuclear.
LOL, here is the liberal solution to the energy crisis…do what you can do with wind and solar but beyond that, rent the Flintstones and start modeling your life over how they lived in the Stone Age. No thanks. I assume you don’t like tea parties? Too bad, you, Reid and Pelosi could have joined each other for one after Tuesday to discuss What Went Wrong.
I enjoyed the movie, it was a fun and stunning visual experience but only a thinly veiled propaganda tool for Mr Cameron. He will need to avoid becoming to preachy.
Start too, that ship sailed long ago. I will never watch another one of his movies. Not that there arent some really good ones (and thats a shame) But I cannot in good concience allow for the possibility that any of my hard earned monies go to the leftist moron. Hes already gonna get most my money when he gets his Big papa bammy bailout.
Not to hate, but I enjoyed the movie and then it fell apart upon a second viewing. It won’t last – very surprised HBO agreed to air it. It was an event movie that was an ultimate letdown, nobody cares about Pandora except Fox’s accountants and Cameron’s overstuffed ego.
It’s honestly one step away from being a Transformers film.
Also: is he directing 2 & 3? Seems clear like he left the details vague so he can option out, but will probably direct regardless (ala Jackson/Hobbit).
At least it’s entertaining watching an megalomaniac billionaire filmmaker with his best work decades behind him abuse the studio system to satisfy his social awkwardness. Maybe Kathryn Bigelow will be the new villain?
Poor, poor Sony and CAA, they tried in vein to get Cameron away from Fox…Sony opening up the bank and CAA just wanting huge commission. But he is loyal and Jim G was a rock star, if you ask anyone involved.
I love how Fox says it took Cameron TEN YEARS to write the first script, which is why it was so good, but now he’s cranking out TWO IN ONE YEAR but don’t worry they’re going to be just as awesome!
The compressed timeline issue is often a problem for recording artists too. When a new artist is signed, the first album typically contains songs the artist has written/recorded/honed over an extended period (5-10 years). But, once an artist is signed, the record label expects them to turn around and write/record/hone equally good songs within a one-year period. It’s just silly!
He only said the ten year thing to give weight to his claim that he wasnt using name recognition with Avatar. You see, there is a great little cartoon (and motion picture that had to change its name due to cameron) called Avatar the last airbender. I know several kids who were disappointed by James stealing the name. I havent seen the last airbender by shamalamdingdong yet but I will. So yea, thats the only reason he said that ten year bit. He may have been working on it a while, but he stole the name to pull in the kiddies.
At first blush I was also pissed that Cameron took the name “Avatar” when his project had been languishing for so long. Then the movie came out and I grudgingly went to see it. Unlike a bunch of the sour grapes posting here I enjoyed the film. I then went to see The Last Airbender–adding Avatar to the front of that film would have helped nothing. It should be pushed from our collective minds as soon as possible. People posting about Avatar having one time viewers who won’t be fooled again should really direct those comments to The Last Airbender. I didn’t see anyone in the audience that wasn’t pulling a “WTF?!” face during that entire film. Also I’m not sure one can “pull in the kiddies”, if they’re so young that the name would confuse them they certainly can’t buy their own movie tickets, and in that case it would be a parent’s job to explain they want The Last Airbender instead. Of course the best parent would explain Avatar wasn’t The Last Airbender, and then deny The Last Airbender film existed and show them episodes of the animated series instead.
Will he ever get around to Battle Angel Alita?
Okay. So “Avatar story line” = “Dances With Wolves” story line. Any guesses on 2 and 3?
#2 – Heaven’s Gate
#3 – Ishtar
#2 – The Na’vi, now seriously riled, invade Earth to grab our priceless Itsonofferium.
#3 – The Earth strikes back by taking off and nuking Pandora from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Didn’t notice your comment until after I posted. My guess is:
OK – James Camer… I mean Comrade… is just going to follow the Plains Indian Wars history. I’m sure it will be a completely one-sided sympathetic ‘Dances with Wolves’ view that the ‘Natives’ were gumdrops and rainbows people with nothing but love in their hearts for everybody. If he follows the same storyline as the US in the late 1800’s: Avatar #1 = Little Bighorn (natives massacre the military, but leave out the native butchery and rape of settlers, the mutilation of the soldiers after the battle, and the fact that the natives were on lands they ‘stole’ from other natives), Avatar #2 = Wounded Knee (reinforced military takes no chances and when the shooting starts they make sure there is no repeat of Little Bighorn. But of course Camro… I mean Comrade will follow the whole ‘Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee’ storyline), and Avatar #3 = Natives settled on reservations, receive cradle-to-grave government assistance and become welfare drones spending every cent they have on firewater. Only wrinkle will be that Comrade will have the natives discover the powerful ‘Ghost Dance’ where they become bulletproof and anniahilate the military once more.
Todd, does it make you right wingnuts empty heads hurt to have brains so small?
Your racist rant is so stupid someone needs to put it in the Smithsonian as bona fide proof that neanderthals do indeed still walk the earth.
Two can be “Waltzes With Wolves” and the climatic third movie can be called “Getting Jiggy With Wolves”???
Avatar was entertaining… yes. And it was groundbreaking with the new technology. But the story was terribly trite, sophomoric, shallow, and smacked of Junior High School “greenie” rhetoric. That’s the shame of it – Cameron now gazes at his own image in the mirror and well, he misses the mark completely with his story. Look Mr. Cameron, you’re a smart guy but hire a good science fiction author and also hire on Harlan Ellison to advise you and criticize you and you’ll have a much better product… you want more revenue right? Listen to your critics here and stop letting the glare of your reflection in the mirror blind you.
Wow, ignorant comments.
Avatar is the biggest grossing movie of all time and it is not even close. It blew Titanic away.
The movie was very good and made BILLIONS, of course they are going to do sequals.
Hey, I like Dark Knight better also, but it is all about MONEY and Avatar made a ton of it.
Avatar was a fun movie but if you adjust the gross for inflation it comes in at number 14
http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
That list lost me at “adjusted to the estimated 2010 average ticket price of $7.95.”
$7.95? really? are these numbers 10 years late?
Those are domestic sales…movies sell worldwide…
How long could the movies be? The humans come back with orbital bombers and assault mechs and send the smurfs to hell on a shutter.
Dances With Wolves + FernGully + Smurfs + Dune + anthropomorphic fetishes = “Singular imagination and daring of James Cameron”.
This movie is worthless, yet it sells like none other. What does this tell us about the average consumer?
You forgot that Cameron’s “Singular imagination and daring” also includes ripping off Roger Dean’s art and ideas.
I guess Cameron plans to nick the rest of Deans art.
I’m sure you enjoy all of your other films, which in no way are any less unoriginal than Avatar. Just because you might have an English accent, and wear an ascot while smoking a tweed pipe and sipping expensive Scotch, doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t enjoy a film well enough..
It tells me that the average consumers know what they like – an all around good movie.
It also tells me that you are below average in thinking the movie is “worthless”. Obviously it isn’t.
Oh boy, another installment of another anti-military, anti-American, socialist loving, America hater limousine liberal piece of garbage.
Yes, it WAS an insult to the military and all the people who give Cameron the ability to work in safety. Typical of a liberal dumbocrat Hollywood arsehole.
HE talks about his brother being in the military and he could ot insult him, BS, he knows what he did and wanted too. That was what took him ten years to write the darn story.
Shame on Cameron and his anti military rant.
You two obviously didn’t pay much attention to the actual film.
Putting aside whether it was good or not (I liked not loved it) it wasn’t a commentary on the military itself, but on the military industrial complex/multinational corporations which is a very different thing.
In case you didn’t notice, the hero of the story WAS a marine adhering to the code of morality and honor The Marines instilled in him as opposed to the bad guy, a former marine who betrayed those ideals for money. That was the point and one of the reasons it’s both a pro-military film and an anti-war film. Apparently without someone screaming “AMERICA #1 FUCK YA! some people don’t get that.
BTW, Blackwater and Exxon/Mobil aren’t in the business of making the U.S. and it’s citizens safer, multimillionaires that employ thousands of people aren’t socialists, social security, medicare, public education and the federal highway system (to name but a few) are all socialist programs we use everyday and Cameron is a canadian citizen who moved here to build a life rather than stay in a socialist Canada. Which isn’t actually a socialist country.
Carefull Jason, you’ve packed far too many points of discussion into one post. You need to boil down each of your thoughts into a catchy phrase, and try to add in witty turns on standard terms like democrat = dumbocrat, or Cameron = Comrade. Think of it as translating the comment into a political L337 speak of sorts.
Good point. You should boycott the un-American company that made this movie, Newscorp, and all of its subsidiaries, including Fox News. Problem solved!
Ahh, I see another Drudge Report shit-consumer has decided to comment on a movie he is not interested in. Once again, both of you are too fucking stupid to pay attention to the movie to realize why your comments are completely fucking ridiculous. I don’t think the movie is the greatest of all time, but I’m sick of you film NAZIS telling Hollywood what they should and shouldn’t have in films.
While the movie was visually pleasing, the plot was a feminized waste. Of course, being that the US is a bunch of feminized foos, it is no wonder it was a popular movie….
Just so you’ll know, Avatar made almost three times as much money overseas as it did in the US. The whole rest of the world must be “feminized foos” too.
So he’s hitched his financial wagon to a billion dollar 3-D star, huh? It’s a bad idea in any economy….especially now when most are about broke. How many 3-D sets is Toshiba now selling? Sure it’s cool for a minute but not worth the big bucks over time. My 19 inch Zenith Trin-a-tron from the 80’s is giving me the same excellent picture as the day I bought it for $100.00, used. Cameron better wise up and start saving cash instead of wasting it. I’m sure I’m not the only one who will be watching “Terminator” again and again…LONG into the future as it was first made. By the way, I barely made it through AVITAR once and was mad as heck cause the increased 3-D ticket price stole my popcorn money away. OK….I’ll stop now!
Please do not discount 3-D TV too soon. I am an old guy who remembers comments about who needs that glitzy color anyway; it is just a fad. Black and white is all I need.
Yep. 3D was cool, but the story itself was a big yawn. Who hasn’t seen this before? Pocahontas / Dances with Wolves / Last of the Mohicans / etc.