Where did you find that, because Variety says $200 million.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117991656.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
True. But as people have said upthread, there’s no such thing as a real flop when it comes to Hollywood. Everything makes money. The only question is, how much does it make? And in that way, if it just barely makes back the $200-$300 million it was budgeted for (and I don’t think Avatar will even sniff $300), it will be a “flop”.
I saw it on the avatar website.
Of course, and ultimately Avatar will make billions. People will complain they’ll bitch and moan but ultimately it’ll be highly profitable.
You can do hot half naked furries for a lot less than this thing is costing. And don’t forget marketing costs.
That’s where we’ll have to disagree. Beyond the fact that I don’t think Avatar’s Fern Troopers plotline will drag people in, December is just not a great time to launch an action blockbuster…
King Kong (2005): $218 million
Apocalypto (2006): $50 million
Eragon (2006): $75 million
I Am Legend (2007): $256 million
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008): $79 million
The only “hit” on that list is I Am Legend. And at $256 million, that’s just the break-even point for Avatar.
Initial budget estimates and budget quotes from the movie website are notoriously unreliable. The former is because movie budgets always expand during production (the rare exception being when you have a cost-conscious director such as Blomkamp who is suddenly handed what, to him, seems like a boatload of cash). The latter is because the production company has a vested interest in making sure their film looks like a massive hit, even if it isn’t, as that draws in additional viewers curious to see what all the fuss is about - why else do you think every single movie commercial after the first weekend of release always trumpets how that film is “#1 in America!!!”?
Again, in the movie world, “break even” = “massive flop.” Turning a $50 million profit on a $250 million movie = “medium flop.” You have to double your budget in domestic earnings alone to be considered “a hit” these days.
It should also be pointed out again that “break even” for Avatar does not equal the approximately $200-$300 million spent making it. You have to take marketing costs into account as well, and for movies getting a wide release, that means tacking on the equivalent of an additional 50-100% of the production budget. For a major action blockbuster like Avatar, the advertising budget will be wayyy on the “100%” side of that scale.
So even if we very conservatively peg Avatar’s final production budget at $200 million, the movie will still have to make back at least $350 million just to break even, and around $700 million worldwide to be considered a hit. Given that the movie probably actually cost around $250 million, those numbers go up to $450 million for break-even, and $900 million to be a hit.
Now consider this: only four movies in history have ever made more than $1 billion worldwide. Avatar literally needs Titanic-level interest to become a hit. And I don’t think that’s likely to happen, for reasons that have already been stated multiple times in this thread.
I saw the trailer and was not impressed. The blue CGI looked cartoony and not as realistic as the hype would lead you to believe. Maybe I’m going to need magic glasses to make this movie look good. I really just don’t see people going ga-ga over blue panther-people, so I think it will be a disappointment.
I was not impressed with the trailer and am really confused as to where all the money is being spent. I had heard that the CGI was mindblowing, but it seemed very ordinary. I would almost say video game cut-scene like. I was really expecting something much closer to photo-realism.
Also, the fight scenes on the planet reminded me of the Ewok battle in RotJ. I don’t care what kind of flying reptiles you have, they’re not going to beat airships equiped with bullets and missiles. That is, unless the humans are totally incompetent and send 1 helicopter to destroy the whole planet.
I may still go see the movie to experience the 3D effect, but I’m really getting tired of these computer generated movies with lots of boom-boom-flash-flash but no story.
Has anyone noticed how much Cameron loves that blue filter.
Terminator 2 and Titanic had tons of scenes done with a blue filter. This one looks to be the same.
I’m aware, but I was just pointing out what they claim their initial budget was when they started pre-production in 1997.
I understand how it works, but what they deem it to be in variety and what the Producers will say when it comes time to greenlight something are totally different things. And no you don’t have to double your budget in domestic earnings alone to be considered a hit. That would mean that practically no $ 200m film was a hit.
Yes of course, but generally whether or not it is a ‘hit’ is pinned to the production budget, not all the ancillary costs. If it makes 300m after costing 200m it will be considered a hit. I’ll give you 50% above cost but not 100%.
Nah, 300m. It'll break 700m worldwide I bet. I think it can do at least as well as The Matrix Reloaded.
No, it won’t get Titanic level interest because the Grandma factor won’t help this movie, but that’s more of that inverse critical hype machine where people declare a movie a flop merely because it cost $ 200m or more long before it even comes out. Remember how horribly Titanic did at the box office three months before it was released? That was the most horrible flop in history.
Cameron uses scripts with good solid stories, that have something new enough in them to be interesting, but not so much as to be foreign. Outside of the Abyss, every single movie he has personally directed has been a hit, and not just a special effects bonanza, and there’s a reason for that.
It’s entirely possible that he’s lost his mojo in the years following Titanic, but one should assume that there will be a story equivalent to Aliens, Terminator, Terminator 2, and Titanic with special effects that are as awesome to us today as they were to the people of then. If it was a recipe for success then, it should be a recipe for success now. And really that’s all there is to it. The question isn’t whether the stars will line up in the sky in the correct order, it’s whether Cameron is going to continue to be Cameron. If he is, it’s going to be a significant event in movie going.
I think the story is going to be good because I trust the people who know the story and tell me so.
Bingo.
Also, I think some people have developed some sort of jaded attitude towards special effects. I mean, I still think Ray Harryhausen’s skeletons are absolutely wonderful, as are the ships in the original Star Wars. And Tron still blows me away.
But those Na’vi look real. Their movement, their texture… all totally believable. I don’t know what everyone else was watching. All science fiction/fantasy films will look “cartoonish” to a degree just because the designs will be stylised. Has everyone lost their sense of wonder?
ETA: I guess Piranha II doesn’t count as a true Cameron film…
I think it’s the uncanny valley thing. Things that are completely fake looking are fine. It’s things that look almost real but not quite that are psychologically disturbing.
Plus the hype thing. This was supposed to be Best CGI Evar! Actually aside from the beasty things the CGI is fairly impressive purely visually. But the motion capture stuff isn’t up to snuff. The movements don’t seem realistic either behaviorally or physics wise.
I’d say you’re right, but in that case it’s not really how fake it all looks so much as how realistic it looks instead.
I dunno, I don’t see it. I’ve seen the trailer several times and each time I’m more impressed with the Na’vi in particular. Also, with the overcranking, etc. in the trailer, the physics may look more off than they really are.
For me it’s entirely about the Na’vi faces.
Hunh. I was not highly impressed with the level of detail or the production design (which seemed rather cliche’d, if pretty) and there isn’t any real information given about the story, so for me the trailer fails on all levels.
I will say, however, that it shows that now the technology apparently exists to do justice to some of my favorite Iain M. Banks novels. Consider Phlebas, Against a Dark Background, Use of Weapons or Feersum Endjinn; man, I wish someone would tackle one of those.
I wouldn’t be so quick to poo-poo the mocap - It’s unlikely that Weta has forgotten how to do picture-perfect motion capture. I think one of the problems with the trailer is that it was released as a Quicktime video, which always looks a bit crappy. The live action elements suffer from the same strangely hesitant/ponderous jitter motion as the CGI. Forget it Jake, it’s Quicktime.
For me the biggest problem is the character design - they eyes look jarringly fakey to me. That being said, the word from folks who’ve seen previews on the big screen is that the creature animation looks much better at its native resolution. This is an effect that we’re somewhat used to, even from DVD transfers.
Hopefully, television ads in 1080p MPEG will give a better impression of what we can expect in the theatre. I’m very jazzed about this movie.
I got the impression, watching the trailer, that most of the “live action” bits weren’t. Only the closeup of the guy with the scarred face looked particularly live actiony. The guy in the wheelchair looked rendered the first time I saw it. Repeat viewings it seemed like maybe it was live action, but I’m really not sure.
I think the blue filters may be throwing you off.
Judging by the cinema preview I saw, the scene of the commander & the guy in the wheelchair are live action, and the CGI elements start a bit later in the film. Unless of course the *entire *film is in CGI, in which case those scenes would indeed be the most advanced CGI I’ve ever seen, as I didn’t have any feeling that they were *not *live action. (Sure computer tweaked & effected and everything, but still live action.)