Draven

Sure, but I do think that had a lot to do with the repeat viewing driving up the box office, especially since there wasn't much to see over the holidays.

The fact that 13 years later no one really talks about Avatar is telling. "Who's your favorite Na'vi?" is hardly watercooler discussion these days.

Jay G.

Die hard fans overestimate their impact on the success of a film or TV show. At best they can sometimes barely keep a show on the air for another season, or trick a movie exec into thinking a sequel will have wide appeal.

Nobody's really talking about Avatar on a daily basis, but that's how it is for the vast majority of the viewing audience for nearly every film. The Fast and the Furious films aren't getting much conversation between each entry in the series, but they still do big box office.

It's like how Star Wars Episode VIII: The Force Awakens rode way more on the nostalgia of casual fans of the series who remember the original trilogy from the 70s-80s and were like "oh, I can see those characters again, cool." Sure, there were die-hard fans who spent a decade+ arguing about the prequels and analyzing every episode of The Clone Wars, but those fans aren't enough to get you into the 10 figure mark in box office.

People will see the promotional material for the sequel, think "oh, I remember liking that movie when I saw it in theaters a lot," and then be inclined to see the sequel. As long it's not total crap that drives super negative word of mouth, it will likely do well.

Wolf359

This will do bonkers box office. People just want to be negative.

Why So Blu?

Indeed. These haters have been going against Cameron directed films since fucking Titanic. Shit, some of the haters weren't even born yet.

tanman

Definitely a lot of movies that have been in production for a long time. But I'm more talking about the unique situation with Avatar. A highly anticipated (arguable I know even back when it was greenlit) sequel to a highly successful movie. It was greenlit relatively quickly, a year after release. And been in production since then. Maybe filming started in 2017 but it's been in active production for far longer. It's tied up a lot of money for a long time.


Avatar is such a strange property. It was immensely popular for about a year. Still mostly thought of positively. Nobody really hates it. But there isn't a huge fan base either. I mean there are huge fan bases for everything. Especially anything scifi related. But nobody cosplays as Avatar characters. Nobody talks about Avatar. Yet it has an entire land in Animal Kingdom dedicated to the property. Think about how many much more popular IPs don't even have a single attraction yet an entire land dedicated to it.

Fans definitely have a huge impact on the BO. Out of the top 10 domestic BO the only ones without a rabid fanbase is probably Avatar and Titanic. But you're right in that you don't have to have that fanbase to have a successful movie. The F&F films are a good example. Nobody talks about them or thinks about them until they release one and it does huge numbers. I think if you have a broad enough appeal any good movie can pull in a lot of money. Either way I'm really curious to see how it does. Will it be a huge flop? Will it somehow repeat or even surpass the success of the original? Or, more likely, will it be a moderate success pulling in respectable but not incredible numbers. I'm going to predict it will take the Hobbit path. A moderately successful "sequel" to a hugely popular and lucrative movie(s) that does respectable business and generates generally positive reviews but is largely forgotten and is ultimately a shadow of the movie(s) that preceded them. (side note, I think the Hobbit would have been a lot more fondly remembered if it had been cut down to as a single movie or even two movies as apposed to stretching it out to three).

Why So Blu?

Avatar was a great catalyst for technology but the studios fucked it all up by just doing shitty 3-D post-conversions. The point was to shoot the shit in native 3-D, but they rarely did.

The last two 3-D shot films I saw in theaters were Resident Evil: Afterlife and Hugo.

B5Erik

FYI - I'm a huge James Cameron fan. I'm still holding out hope for an Abyss Blu Ray.

But this was a one off movie 13 years ago that hasn't aged all that well. There isn't nostalgia to count on, and people have generally just forgotten the movie. I just think it's going to be difficult for them to even hit 1/3 of the box office the first movie did.

kd5

Avatar 2 might actually draw my wife and I back to the movie theater. We haven't been to a theater since before covid. This would be awesome on the big screen. Regardless, I'll be buying the extended version on standard blu-ray when it comes out. It won't look too shabby on our 65" TV.

Jay G.

Again, the first film grossed $2 billion worldwide. Estimates of the budget for the 4 sequels is between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, but keep in mind that only the first 2 are fully funded. Also, that funding was likely distrubuted piecemeal as needs came up, it's not like Fox just dropped half a billion in Cameron's bank account right away; there was likely some initial funding for pre-production (writing, art direction, pre-vis maybe), then more funding when filming actually started, then more for post production, etc. So likely a giant portion, if not all, of the funding came from the profits of the first film, and it hasn't been all "locked up" in the sequels for 12 years.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottme...h=6466057426b0

I would think that speaks to the film's widespread appeal, even if it hasn't inspired a "hardcore" fanbase, further undermining the idea that a hardcore fanbase drives a film's overall popularity.

I think you have the causality reversed for those big BO films. They didn't do big BO because of the rabid fanbase, but they have a large rabid fanbase because they did big BO. It's just basic math: the more people that see a movie, the larger the overall number of rabid fans, even if they're still a very small percentage of total viewers. As you point out, F&F do big numbers despite low numbers of cosplayers and obsessive online discussions about them. Also, it's not clear you were looking at domestic or worldwide top 10, but I don't think the Lion King remake has a rabid fanbase either; in fact it seemed most of the rabid fans of Disney and/or the original Lion King bemoaned its existence.

And the success of Star Wars and the MCU films have more to do with their widespread appeal than the rabid fanbase. If you ask most people who watch the MCU films, you'll find they're, at best, "MCU fans," with few having read the original comics. I mean, the original Iron Man film was considered a questionable project, despite existing in the comics for decades. The MCU films succeeded because they managed to make films with wide appeal, not because of the easter eggs they hide in the films for the hardcore fans, no matter how much noise those fans make about them online.

All 3 Hobbit movies did better worldwide box office than the first two LOTR films. Only ROTK beat them. I think Fox/Disney would be more than happy if the Avatar sequels followed the same path.

Josh-da-man

Strange is a good way of putting it. The movie had a huge amount of mainstream appeal back in 2009, but interest seems to have mostly cooled off. There are no toy lines or comic books or video games. It was like a huge blip in the zeitgeist, but didn't seem to fire the public's imagination like Star Wars or Harry Potter. Outside of the theme park, it's been a dormant franchise for more than a decade.

Does Avatar even get shown on cable tv? It seems like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, and Twilight have been playing non-stop on basic cable for years. I don't think I've seen Avatar in the listings in ages.



The F&F franchise is hugely popular with males in their teens and twenties. Most of the people in my age group have kids who are into F&F. It also helps that they put out a new movie every couple of years.


It will be interesting to see how it does. I think The Hobbit is probably going to be an apt comparison.

Avatar is, when you think about it, in a weird place. It's populist sci-fi. There isn't really any kind of hardcore "nerd" fanbase for it like you see with things like Star Trek and Star Wars, and most of its revenue came from people who shun things like Star Trek. Most of the Avatar fans seem to be casual fans. Will it hurt the sequel because it took thirteen years for it to come out? Should Cameron have struck while the iron was still hot?

JeremyM

I don't know, I am not going to naysay, I am looking forward to seeing what this crazy man is giving us this time.

Dan

I think the immense popularity of the Avatar rides at Disney World are an indication that 1) first and foremost, people like new rides, but also 2) Avatar itself is still pretty popular as a franchise, and 3) that should translate into pretty high popularity at the box office once this sequel comes out. I doubt it'll out-perform the first movie, but it'll do some numbers, to be sure.

bluetoast

Images from the upcoming teaser (link to images in the tag, no images within this post):




TomOpus

Dan

Video will probably be pulled soon. Don't click the spoiler if you don't want to see it.




E Unit

Whoa. More of the same I guess.

tanman

That's all fine and good and true. My only point is that it's unprecedented.

I'm not sure how much clear I can be I was talking about domestic BO. I chose to look at the domestic BO because I think it's a better comparison of the overall popularity of the movies within a franchise because it negates the, basically meteoric rise, of the chinese market in very recent times.

I totally disagree with you on the fanbase though. All of the movies in the top 10 are all sequels to already highly successful franchises. They already had a rabid fanbase. The movies in the top 10 didn't create that fanbase the preceding movies before did. They would not be in the top 10 with out repeat business from the core fanbase that saw the movie over and over again in the theater. And for the purposes of our discussion I mean rabid fanbase just in terms of the BO. Those fans that will see a movie more then once in the theater thus driving the BO. It doesn't really matter if they read the original comics or cosplay or anything like that. Just talking about BO numbers. And you're right Star Wars and the MCU does have a pretty broad appeal but they just don't make the amount of money they do without the fanbase and repeat viewings. And you're right, broad appeal does contribute to the overall BO. That's definitely how Titanic was so successful. Everyone and their grandma, literally, went to the movies to see that movie. But going back to your original statement that the fanbase effect on BO is over estimated, IMHO is not correct. Of course it's not necessary to have a fanbase to have a successful movie. But IMHO, nowadays to crack the top 10 I think it is.

Yeah you're right. Again looking at domestic just for comparisons sake, the Hobbit films did do a lot better then I remember. Definitely successful and definitely profitable. But, subjectively, still a little disappointing that they didn't make as much as the original trilogy and that instead of increasing with each successive movie they decreased or leveled off in BO.

FotR - $313
TT - $340
RotK - $377
Hobbit 1 - $303
Hobbit 2 - $258
Hobbit 3 - $255

tanman

Will definitely be waiting to see the trailer until next week in the theater. I wish 3D was still popular so I could see the trailer in 3D. Surprisingly they do still have 3D showings of Dr. Strange but they are all in the smallest theaters.

Here's a hot take. Did the MCU kill 3D? I think since they have largely dominated the BO since the last Avatar movie came out and I believe that most if not all their movies were converted in 3D in post and therefore did nothing to further the format and probably hurt it, that they might have been largely responsible for killing 3D..? Maybe?

Draven

The Flight of Passage Disney ride is popular because it’s an awesome ride. The river boat thing is lame as hell. They do have the “floating” islands which are neat to see.

And it is insane how much they play up the idea that there are people who want to “be” in that world - I got no joy at seeing a Na’vi up close in the big water tube in the lab - it was just the thing they made while we all waited in line for the actual fun and interesting thing.

Dan

I thought the river boat thing was fine. Not a GOOD ride by any real stretch, but just another relaxed float for 10 min or whatever it was.
but my point was only that it's there to get people hyped for the new films. If there were zero plans for sequels, then there's no chance either of those rides would exist, IMO.

Draven

Fair enough. I just think it’s wild they themed it with Avatar. Flight of Passage doesn’t need Avatar to be awesome.

It like walking into a whole section of a theme park that depicts the world of Dances with Wolves in lavish detail. Like…okay…does anyone want to actually BE here though?

Jay G.

Everything is unprecedented until it's done. Before LOTR, it was unprecedented to greenlight a trilogy of films from the first film, and it's only been repeated with The Hobbit. Just because its unprecedented or rare doesn't mean it's bad.

Fair enough about you specifying domestic BO, which I missed. However, I don't know why you think domestic is a better metric, since the Avatar sequels are going to benefit from that giant overseas market, just like the first did, and was likely a major factor in Fox's decision to greenlight the sequels. Also, "All Time" is tricky for comparisons between films that are decades apart, since there's also ticket inflation, reduced number of films by major studios each year, and such to consider. It's telling that all but 1 in the top 10 domestic of all time are from the 2000s on, and most are 2010s on.

Are you still talking about domestic top 10 all time? Because I don't recall a rabid fanbase and/or franchise for Titanic before it came out.

Also, while Jurassic Park was popular, there's no "rabid fanbase" for that franchise as far as I know, and the franchise itself was dormant for over a decade (14 years), after experiencing a downward slide in BO of sequels, before Jurassic World came out. It seems like people just like seeing dinosaurs run rampage.

And, of course, Avatar is one of those top 10, which had no prexisting franchise nor fanbase.

Correlation is not causation, and while 7 out of 10 films maybe could be considered to have a "rabid fanbase," they were also just hugely popular films with widespread appeal. There's people that went to see The Avengers that hadn't seen any of the previous MCU films. And while franchises like F&F don't have "rabid" fanbases, people keep going to see them because they liked the previous entries, but their fandom is casual and they don't obsess about the films between entries, but still go see those films. I'm arguing that's the bulk of the audience for even those films and franchises that do have rabid fanbases. Rabid fanbases don't necessarily translate to box office success. I mean, Kevin Smith has a pretty rabid fanbase, and yet Jay and Silent Bob Reboot grossed less than $5 million.

Like, just a few months ago I recall everyone fretting about whether Dune Part 1 would make any money, despite it being based on one of the most acclaimed sci-fi novels ever. One can't depend on the rabid fanbase for success, since while vocal, they're ultimately a small niche. A movie needs widespread appeal outside just the dedicated fanbase, to casual viewers, in order to have real success.

Michael Corvin

Interesting theory but I doubt it. To me the downfall of 3D was because of a few things IMO, 1. oversaturating the market, with post convert 3D, and especially on movies that don't need 3D. 2. unlike Avatar and maybe a select few others, it was just a 'throw shit at the screen' gimmick vs. adding actual depth. 3. charging more for tickets was a terrible move from the start because outside of Avatar I doubt any 3D film was worth the extra cost. Couple that with a lame post convert 3D version of a film that didn't need it and you're at the oversaturation point.

Now, Disney using 3D correctly with the rise of the MCU could have prevented it's demise, but maybe not. Ticket price was the biggest factor to me.


Even simpler explanation, sometimes you can just tell that certain films will just be more fun on a giant screen and with an audience. Dinosaurs, superheroes, lightsabers and fast cars fit the bill.

Also, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot didn't get a wide release, IIRC, so not a very good example. Pretty sure that was part of his travelling tour where he charged like $50 or something to see it 'one night only in your town' and moved on to the next city.

Jay G.

That just supports my point. Even with his dedicated fanbase, Kevin Smith couldn't make a wide release of a sequel to his most popular series viable.

As you note, it's not about how dedicated or rabid the fanbase is, it's about how much of widespread appeal the film has, especially to make it worth seeing in theaters.

JeremyM

I believe the Waterworld stunt attraction was very popular at Universal Studios despite the movie not being a smash. So these things don't always work hand-in-hand.

My understanding is Disney knew they missed the boat by losing out on Harry Potter (Disney just wanted essentially a single ride and not a themed area) so Avatar was their attempt to match that. I know the section is very popular, but obviously it's not on the same level as what Universal has done with Potter and I think it's just "one more attraction" at Disney rather than a draw like Harry Potter is. Plus they acquired Star Wars and they expanded that instead of more Avatar stuff. (Chances are I am fuzzy on a lot of the details here.)

For what it's worth I never cared much for Star Tours or even the Falcon ride, though Rise of the Resistance is incredible.