AVATAR - See it in 3D if you haven't! #1 Movie All-Time Domestic & Worldwide!

[STeeLy]

I agree with whoever on here said that movie success should not be how much money is made on but rather on ticket sales, I highly doubt Avatar is at the top for ticket sales.

[Five-hole]

Originally Posted by octothorp

One more thing to add: Papyrus!!!! After $300 million dollars, years spent developing the Na'vi world, culture, and language (which sounded pretty cool and convincing), years more spent immaculately art-directing the film, and then when it comes to picking a font for the subtitles, they spent five minutes to identify the most ethnicky-looking one that comes pre-installed on their computer? Nobody who's not a graphic designer is going to care about it, but it ranks only a little behind comic sans as the most mocked font out there.

Achewood

[breakaway]

I haven't seen it yet. Should I see it at Imax or regular 3d? Or is there barely any difference?
For those of you have seen it at both, can you tell me what theatres you went to and how your experience compared?

[HPLovecraft]

IMAX is always the best option for Avatar if you have a choice. Legit IMAX.

[awildermode]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

IMAX is always the best option for Avatar if you have a choice. Legit IMAX.

yes! a co-worker saw both regular 3d and imax. said imax has a greater depth, more pop.

imax is the way to go

[breakaway]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

IMAX is always the best option for Avatar if you have a choice. Legit IMAX.

I've never been to the Imax at Chinook Centre. I hope that is a legit one.

For those who go to Imax to watch this, how early do you wait in line to get a good seat?

[Smell My Finger]

Originally Posted by STeeLy

I agree with whoever on here said that movie success should not be how much money is made on but rather on ticket sales, I highly doubt Avatar is at the top for ticket sales.

If that was the case it would be GONE WITH THE WIND it was in the theatres for 8 years straight after 1939 and rereleased 3 more time in the 50's and 60's.

Star Wars in 1977 was in theatres for 2 years straight and then rereleased in Drive In's only.

Big blockbluster movies like Avatar are released in several more theatres similtainously now compared to say Star Wars when there was maybe 5 or 6 theatres in Calgary. If anyone remembers at that time all the Star Wars movies you would be standing in line to buy ticket's for 2hours and another hour in the "purchased tickets line". Different times. Lineups were sometimes 2-3 blocks long. Also in the case of Drive In's which most teenagers now would say wtf is that?
You could pile as many people into a car to see 2-4 movies on a weekend night for a flat $20. So how does anyone determine how many people actually saw Star Wars?

Regardless I saw Avatar for the second time last night and it was just as incredible all over again.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by breakaway

I've never been to the Imax at Chinook Centre. I hope that is a legit one.

For those who go to Imax to watch this, how early do you wait in line to get a good seat?

Chinook Center is the only legit IMAX screen in Calgary, as far as I know. Should be called "IMAX 3D" or some, such, not just "IMAX" like a lot of smaller screens are.

[Orange]

Originally Posted by STeeLy

I agree with whoever on here said that movie success should not be how much money is made on but rather on ticket sales, I highly doubt Avatar is at the top for ticket sales.

It definitely should account for inflation but I don't know about just ticket sales. It's the basic supply and demand age old formula, not to mention all the other factors, could it have made more money (or sold more tickets) if it was released before or after the recession?

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by breakaway

I've never been to the Imax at Chinook Centre. I hope that is a legit one.

For those who go to Imax to watch this, how early do you wait in line to get a good seat?

It probably depends a lot on what showing you're going to. I went to the Chinook Imax 10:30 showing last sunday. We were told to show up two hours early, and we were second in line. We could have showed up an hour ahead and still gotten great seats. But I assume that for earlier shows, two hours is probably a good recommendation.

[casper57]

i saw avatar, kewl film worth a look,
best film ever. or even this year, not sure if i would go that far.


my opinion
james cameron has no guts.

to me the film was a take off
on the the columbus or the europeans coming to american and meeting the native americans.

or any similar situation
and well we all know how they turn out don't they

the natives get conqured by the more tech savy culture, end of story

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by STeeLy

I agree with whoever on here said that movie success should not be how much money is made on but rather on ticket sales, I highly doubt Avatar is at the top for ticket sales.

No. Ticket sales are a measure of general consumption and popularity but not neccessarily an monetary measure of a film's success which is really what is important to the studio.

How much money (net profit) a movie makes is much much more important.

That people are willing to pay basically double the regular cost to see a film like Avatar says something in and of itself. A lot those older films from the 40s-70s that are highly ranked on ticket sales numbers also cost from $0.20 to $2 most likely - even accounting for inflation, those were probably cheaper prices in terms of average income compared to how expensive movie tickets are getting these days. Also there was less competition in other forms of entertainment. The wide variation in theatre runs and release of many films (including re-releases) make judging by ticket sales alone unreliable.

The actual success of a movie should be gauged by the difference between production/marketing budget vs. revenue and then adjusted for inflation. Gone With the Wind certainly is a runaway winner but it benefits from less competition, being in theatres for years and years (instead of months like current films), and re-releases. For it's premiere, people paid prices jacked up 4-5 times (up to a dollar!) to see that film. Incredible!

[Nehkara]

BOX OFFICE UPDATE!

Avatar breaks the $2 billion mark worldwide, first movie ever to accomplish this.

Avatar made $30 million domestic, $95 million worldwide to bring its Domestic earnings to $594.5 million and worldwide earnings to $2.04 billion.

Avatar's $30 million domestic weekend gives the movie a 7th weekend at #1 and it breaks yet another record, this being the most ever made by a movie in its 7th weekend.

[Nehkara]

For those of you keeping track in terms of tickets, Avatar is now #21 all-time in terms of ticket sales.

[CMPunk]

Still haven't seen it

[Hemi-Cuda]

out of curiosity sake, how do the dollars per ticket work out for say Gone With The Wind compared to Avatar? for example say it cost $1 for a ticket to GWTW, what would that be in today's dollars? (i don't know what the tickets actually cost back then, just for example purposes) since the vast majority of people are seeing Avatar in 3D with higher ticket prices, it would be interesting to see how many people are willing to pay more to see it versus other movies

[Cowperson]

Saw it in 2-D on Maui a few days ago. Liked it.

Some older guys and me were exiting the sparsely attended screening and I couldn't help but blurt out . . . "Why can't the corporations win? Just once!!!"

Then, purely coincidentally, the next day the controversy comes up with complaints the plot line goes way over the top in terms of anti-business, anti-military, etc, etc. . . . . . which is hard to deny.

Good flick. I'll have to see if I can watch it in 3-D sometime.

Cowperson

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

out of curiosity sake, how do the dollars per ticket work out for say Gone With The Wind compared to Avatar? for example say it cost $1 for a ticket to GWTW, what would that be in today's dollars? (i don't know what the tickets actually cost back then, just for example purposes) since the vast majority of people are seeing Avatar in 3D with higher ticket prices, it would be interesting to see how many people are willing to pay more to see it versus other movies

If you go back through the thread, box office adjusted for inflation has been posted over a dozen times.

I'm really not sure what you are asking. GWTW cost something like $0.23 originally but it was in theatres for something like 8 years and released in theatres many many times. Avatar won't be in theatres for even 8 months.

The best way I can think of to look at this is that average income in 1939 was $1730 a year or 83 cents an hour. Of course, that income was for the entire family since mostly only men worked. In 2010, it's something around $40,000 a year or about $19 an hour. So seeing Gone with the Wind costs about 15 minutes of work. Seeing Avatar costs almost your entire hour of work.

[Tyler]

Went and saw it today.

Great film! Well worth the $15 and definitely the right movie to pop my 3D cherry on.

[Kybosh]

Originally Posted by Tyler

Went and saw it today.

Great film! Well worth the $15 and definitely the right movie to pop my 3D cherry on.

I popped my 3D cheery with Captain Eo. Ah, memories!