It definitely has enough hype to have a floor in the 550 million range domestic, but I don't think anyone would call less than 700 million a success, would they?
The hype and clear slate should give them a pretty good run over the 2 week Xmax break, but I don't see it having anywhere near the legs of the first movie unless it's a great story or he's figured out a way to get us to care about the characters.
It definitely has enough hype to have a floor in the 550 million range domestic, but I don't think anyone would call less than 700 million a success, would they?
The hype and clear slate should give them a pretty good run over the 2 week Xmax break, but I don't see it having anywhere near the legs of the first movie unless it's a great story or he's figured out a way to get us to care about the characters.
Well, Cameron himself has said that it has to break 2 BILLION to MAKE money...which would generally be considered a success. So...the bar's at 2 billion...
When the much-anticipated James Cameron sci-fi epic is released on December 16, it will need to make more than $2 billion at the global box office, just to break even. That’s according to Cameron himself, who told GQ for a story published this week that the movie is “very f–king” expensive and possibly represented “the worst business case in movie history.”
The original made just shy of $800m domestic. Making at least $650-700m this time around would be the min to be considered successful imo.
It can’t and won’t have near the legs of the original because this one will be so much more front loaded. Plus the original had some of the craziest legs ever. If it opens huge and has legs like the original, it’ll easily beat the first movie, but it won’t.
I love this part where he offers anyone in the audience $1000 if they could name these two characters.
I couldnt.
I love John but besides being fake, that’s hilariously stupid.
I couldn’t tell you the main characters in like 90% of movies from 15 years ago. Or 5 years ago. Or 1 year ago. I couldn’t tell you Tom Cruise’s character’s name in friggin top gun. Or his son. Or his girlfriend. And I’ve seen that movie twice in the last 6 months.
Does anyone remember the name of the characters in true lies? Or the abyss? Or transformers? I sure as hell don’t.
I love John but besides being fake, that’s hilariously stupid.
I couldn’t tell you the main characters in like 90% of movies from 15 years ago. Or 5 years ago. Or 1 year ago. I couldn’t tell you Tom Cruise’s character’s name in friggin top gun. Or his son. Or his girlfriend. And I’ve seen that movie twice in the last 6 months.
Does anyone remember the name of the characters in true lies? Or the abyss? Or transformers? I sure as hell don’t.
Heh. Exactly. After seeing that question, and thinking about it, I eventually remembered that the guy was named "Jake...something". I couldn't remember the woman's name, but did recall that it started with "Ney...I can't remember the rest". I was pretty impressed with myself.
I love John but besides being fake, that’s hilariously stupid.
I couldn’t tell you the main characters in like 90% of movies from 15 years ago. Or 5 years ago. Or 1 year ago. I couldn’t tell you Tom Cruise’s character’s name in friggin top gun. Or his son. Or his girlfriend. And I’ve seen that movie twice in the last 6 months.
Does anyone remember the name of the characters in true lies? Or the abyss? Or transformers? I sure as hell don’t.
I don't think anyone is giving anyone a billion dollars for Abyss 2 or True Lies. Transformers aren't my thing, but I can easily name at least 3 of the characters. Maverick, Goose and Viper were pretty recognizable names for people who grew up watching the first Top Gun.
Cameron is trying to turn this into a mega-franchise, but is there a franchise out there where we care so little about the characters or the story? All anyone remembers is the experience, blue people and that it was a big success.
Giving a billion dollars to who? Those movies made money. I picked cameron movies, well 2/3, but you could literaelly name dozens of other movies.
maverick, goose and viper aren't names of the characters. They're call signs that are written in big letters on their helmet for half the movie with the camera showing it close up. What are their actual character names? Basically only Marvel has achieved the feat and they had 60 years of fandom to support it and 25 movies to drill those names into our heads.
maybe we'd remember the avatar people's names if they wore big bold name tags which the camera focused on for 3 straight hours like they get in top gun.
Are you seriously pretending you cared so much about the characters and story in transformers? In Aquaman? In Black Adam? Don't be ridiculous. No one did. No one does. You can replace the movies I named with virtually any tentpole in the last 25 years.
Sure, there are a tiny, tiny number of movies where people were heavily invested, a few disney movies and several marvel movies. Few and far between other than those. They are the exception, not the rule.
Even the new star wars is filled with a bunch of forgettable characters that no one cared about and a crapy story. People want 'splosions. The idea anyone would pretend otherwise is asinine.
Giving a billion dollars to who? Those movies made money. I picked cameron movies, well 2/3, but you could literaelly name dozens of other movies.
maverick, goose and viper aren't names of the characters. They're call signs that are written in big letters on their helmet for half the movie with the camera showing it close up. What are their actual character names? Basically only Marvel has achieved the feat and they had 60 years of fandom to support it and 25 movies to drill those names into our heads.
maybe we'd remember the avatar people's names if they wore big bold name tags which the camera focused on for 3 straight hours like they get in top gun.
Are you seriously pretending you cared so much about the characters and story in transformers? In Aquaman? In Black Adam? Don't be ridiculous. No one did. No one does. You can replace the movies I named with virtually any tentpole in the last 25 years.
Sure, there are a tiny, tiny number of movies where people were heavily invested, a few disney movies and several marvel movies. Few and far between other than those. They are the exception, not the rule.
Even the new star wars is filled with a bunch of forgettable characters that no one cared about and a crapy story. People want 'splosions. The idea anyone would pretend otherwise is asinine.
They talk to each other by their call signs in the movies as well. They work as character names.
I want to go back in time when studios are spending on making original, big movies like Terminator, True Lies, Abyss, (and Raiders, ET, Star Wars, etc),
I have no ill will to the first Avatar. I just don't think it has enough juice to justify spending 14 years and a billion dollars on 4 sequels. I am not going to argue for Transformers, but they had good and evil characters that people cared about, I guess. Avatar has no characters anyone cared about, a derived story with ground breaking effects and an experience. If their just relying on the last part, it is not a multi billion dollar franchise. If Cameron comes up with a compelling story for the sequels, then it can justify its aspirations. It would also help if he brought back some of the humour that made movies like T2 and True Lies so good.
I love John but besides being fake, that’s hilariously stupid.
I couldn’t tell you the main characters in like 90% of movies from 15 years ago. Or 5 years ago. Or 1 year ago. I couldn’t tell you Tom Cruise’s character’s name in friggin top gun. Or his son. Or his girlfriend. And I’ve seen that movie twice in the last 6 months.
Does anyone remember the name of the characters in true lies? Or the abyss? Or transformers? I sure as hell don’t.
I found it interesting. Not being able to remember the main characters name seems kind of weird for the top grossing film of all time that was only released in 2009. True lies and the abyss are from the early 90's and aren't sitting in the top 2 or even 300 on that list. Looking at the list the only films that might be comparable (not including Marvel & Star Wars because that would skew) would be Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, LOTR, Minions, Skyfall, Pirates of the Caribbean, and some Batman Films. Which are a mostly a bunch of sequel or franchise films so it's hard to count them.
Titanic would be a decent example even though it was 10 years earlier and if he made the same joke about that film it wouldn't have landed because most people could remember the two leads. Frozen would be another one from around 4 years later but gets a sequel asterisk.
Inception would maybe be the best comparison; an original movie, released a year later and 86th on the list. I remember Leo's characters name but maybe only because I've seen it a bunch of times. The rest of the cast I draw a blank on.
Liked Avatar a lot. I think I walked out of the theatre and called it the best cinematic experience of my life.
Yet I have zero urge to go see the sequel in the theatre. It’s not the movie… it’s the theatre.
Covid put a crimp in things, but I’ve been back a number of times this year. I guess the reasons I don’t want to go are:
1) Advertising before the movies. I don’t have tolerance for ads anymore.
2) People with cell phones. They just need a quick peek! Every 10 min.
3) My home setup gives me control of the volume. I don’t have to bring earplugs.
4) The difference between the “Big Screen” and my home setup still exists, but is much less than it’s ever been.
I suspect it’s a dying industy, so they have to double down on ads, and allowing people to be on social media, and gouging prices. It saddens me because I love movies, and I used to love going to the theatre.
I love John but besides being fake, that’s hilariously stupid.
I couldn’t tell you the main characters in like 90% of movies from 15 years ago. Or 5 years ago. Or 1 year ago. I couldn’t tell you Tom Cruise’s character’s name in friggin top gun. Or his son. Or his girlfriend. And I’ve seen that movie twice in the last 6 months.
Does anyone remember the name of the characters in true lies? Or the abyss? Or transformers? I sure as hell don’t.
My guy, I'm pretty sure most people can name Optimus Prime.
I found it interesting. Not being able to remember the main characters name seems kind of weird for the top grossing film of all time that was only released in 2009. True lies and the abyss are from the early 90's and aren't sitting in the top 2 or even 300 on that list. Looking at the list the only films that might be comparable (not including Marvel & Star Wars because that would skew) would be Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, LOTR, Minions, Skyfall, Pirates of the Caribbean, and some Batman Films. Which are a mostly a bunch of sequel or franchise films so it's hard to count them.
Titanic would be a decent example even though it was 10 years earlier and if he made the same joke about that film it wouldn't have landed because most people could remember the two leads. Frozen would be another one from around 4 years later but gets a sequel asterisk.
Inception would maybe be the best comparison; an original movie, released a year later and 86th on the list. I remember Leo's characters name but maybe only because I've seen it a bunch of times. The rest of the cast I draw a blank on.
Yeah I have issue with trying to compare avatar to a bunch of movies based on pre existing characters and properties like comic books. Or even like Star Wars that have been around for 40 years, have 9 movies and are basically fully part of pop culture with dozens of other types of media.
As for why Avatar didn’t catch on like that, I think it’s pretty simple. It just wasn’t a super kid friendly movie in terms of characters. Nor was the world building strong enough to warrant a bunch of other media to expand on the mythology. I get that riles some people up but I honestly don’t care. Not every movie property needs to be all encompassing in our consciousness where a bunch of people become obsessed with it and base their entire personalities around a film franchise. It’s ok for a movie to just be a movie.
That being said, I don’t think the amount of money it made is in any way relevant to the names of the characters being memorable. What difference does it make if you or I can’t remember the names of the 50th highest grossing movie of the first? We still saw it. Does the number of other people who saw it besides you affect your ability to remember the names? And why does the release date matter? But even if you wanted to use movies from the same era, the point still stands. No one remembers names from most movies, except the ones that turn into pop culture crossovers.
People seem to have this expectation that the highest grossing movie of all time also needs to be the best and most memorable. It’s actually kind of a bizarre assertion and connection. It’s just not how movies work.
I also remember how reviled titanic was when it came out and got the exact same backlash from angry internet males. It makes me wonder if part of the reason these movies are so hated is that they aren’t typical male oriented superhero or sci-fi fare. Most of the rest of the list skew heavily towards young men and nerdy franchises. Titanic was often viewed as the ultimate chick flick and was widely mocked as being a terrible movie by the internet crowd. Avatar may be sci-fi but it definitely didn’t entice young men the way the superhero and Star Wars movies did. And for whatever reason, they’re mad at avatar for that.
Lol. An actual character. Not the toy we know from before the movie.
People who didn’t know the toys or cartoon wouldn’t be able to name any human character or robot.
I think the point of that John Oliver video though was that Avatar was so huge and popular, those characters and character names should be as deeply ingrained in pop culture as Luke Skywalker or Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark or Harry Potter or Jack Sparrow. It wasn't just a successful movie, it was the successful movie of all time.
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