I’m predicting that Avatar is going to be in the Hollywood history books twice. Once for biggest movie of all time and once (or three times) for most expensive bust of all time.
Avatar was successful for one reason only. The 3d effects. That’s why everyone went to see it in the theater. I don’t know anyone who thought the story was even decent, let alone good. There’s no way the sequels will recapture the spectacle of the first one. Particularly with 3d starting it’s decline again. I think the 2nd one will do good numbers but the 3rd and 4th, even they even release a 4th, will tank because the universe and story are so paint by numbers.
On the contrary, the story was good… at supporting the visuals.
And if good visuals were enough to make the first one a success, why wouldn’t they be enough to make sequels a success, too? Even if they’re not as successful as the original, there’s a heck of a lot of room between the original Avatar and “good enough to be profitable for the studio”.
The first was simplified to be introductory, and as a way to hang the visuals at their most impactful. James Cameron is more than capable of writing a bigger, more involving story if he needs to, but he also recognises when he doesn’t need to.
Three sequels does seem overly optimistic and overwhelming, but there’s a decent chance it will pay off.
I’d say that many people went to see Avatar due to the “gotta go see this amazing 3D in the theater” chatter around town. At this point, 3D is kinda passe. It’s been done to death now. Unless there is some huge breakthrough in 3D or some other gimmick between now and Avatar 2 (and there could be, I don’t know) I think the franchise will lose a large portion of the people who went to see the movie solely to experience the never-seen-before-3D-done-right because we’ve all moved on.
As far as the story there were no memorable characters (I couldn’t name a single one from memory, though would recognize a few of them if I read them). I couldn’t even name the planet without a hint at this point. I agree with you that the story serviced the visuals but I don’t think that will carry a sequel.
3D has been done to death since before I was born. The magic of Avatar is that it created a new 3D world that was somehow convincing in the moment. At least, it worked on my simian brain. I haven’t seen a 3D movie since Avatar that did anything for me. It didn’t give me the Avatar blues, but if Avatar 2 can recreate some of those feelings I had watching the original, I’d see it.
The problem is, more of the same won’t cut it. It’ll be interesting to see if they try and take it in a different direction, or if they stick with the tried-and-true sequel strategy of “make the same movie, only bigger.”
Don’t equate a “simply presented” and “not ambitious” story with a bad one.
Everyone describes the movie as a mix between Pocahontas and Fern Gulley, because those are two extremely popular movies with the same message. Same with Last Samurai, Dances with Wolves, etc.
Aren’t “amazing 3D spectacles” the only kind of movie that really draws people to theaters anymore? Any other kind of movie seems pointless to pay theater prices to see when it doesn’t take that long to be available On-Demand.
Actually, I think that’s true. I read somewhere that the average person sees only five or six movies in the theater each year and they’re much more likely to go to the special effects spectacular than the little arthouse film.
This is very simple: movie studios want franchises that bring in dependable amounts of money. You can see this in movies based on comics, in movies adapted from book series, and now in movies adapted from book series that split the last book into two movies to keep the box office money pouring in a little longer. We’ve been hearing for a couple of years that they would make two sequels. Raising it to three isn’t that much crazier. All the criticisms of the first movie are accurate - it looked great and there was pretty much no reason at all to think about the movie 24 hours after you’d seen it - but stupid movies can make plenty of money.
If they spend the money to make a fourth, they’ll release it because that’s the only way to get any money back. If you’re releasing three movies with one year in between, that means a lot of the work on the movies is happening at the same time and the fourth one will be almost done by the time the third one comes out. So if the third one tanks the advertising for the fourth one might get cut down, but it won’t get canceled entirely.
Perhaps a lot of the initial investment was to develop the software, camera rigging, etc. that can be leveraged for a much cheaper sequel.
I actually did not enjoy Avatar at all, but I think at least the first sequel will do good box office (probably not as good as the original, but still good).
If people wen to *Avatar *because of the 3D, then why did they go to Titanic? Because it seems to me that what moviegoers *really *want to see, is movies directed by James Cameron.
For the record, I liked the film a lot, with or without 3D. It was a mixture of 60’s science fiction and 80’s Heavy Metal magazine visuals.
I could see two sequels having a very good chance of making serious money. They should film both at the same time and save some money (though not much savings on post-production.) Maybe get both done for 400M? You’d get the benefit of your marketing effort carrying over to the second film, too.
Hehe, I was thinking of Avatar:The Last Airbender.
Biggest movie? Successful? everybody went to see it? I was wondering what the hell you had been smoking.
