# Predicting Cameron's Avatar: Waterworld or Titanic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2009, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638 "2009-12-01T23:29:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/421 "2010-01-25T20:27:03Z")
An off-topic but [interesting tidbit](http://www.thresq.com/2010/01/avatar-pirate.html): > [@](#): > > ‘Avatar’ tops most-pirated movie list > > “Avatar” is proving just as popular in the piracy underground as it has been at the box office. > > The James Cameron epic ranks as the most downloaded film on BitTorrent. Some believe that online pirates want to check out the film on digital networks before going to see the “real” 3-D experience in the theaters, but the appetite for the film seems strong enough that pirates want a second, third, and even fourth taste by downloading the film. [Recently, we examined](http://www.thresq.com/2010/01/are-3d-movies-like-avatar-really-immune-from-piracy.html) whether “Avatar” is immune from piracy, as Cameron has suggested. > > [ten most pirated films list at link] I wouldn’t go searching for it, but I also wouldn’t turn down an offer of a pirated copy, so I could check quotes and clarify order of scenes and double-check something I’m about ready to say about the film. I’ve seen the film 3 times and fully intend to see it again at least once, but possibly more, before it leaves the theaters. And owning the DVD is a no-brainer. I wouldn’t feel (too) bad about owning a pirated copy even though I know it’s wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/422 "2010-01-25T20:31:30Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > I wouldn’t feel (too) bad about owning a pirated copy even though I know it’s wrong. Nitpick: It’s _illegal_. It’s debateable whether or not it’s _wrong_ (i.e., unethical). ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/423 "2010-01-25T20:48:10Z")
I’d always thought that Avatar wouldn’t appeal to young women in the way Titanic did and that this meant it had little chance of overhauling Titanic. Shows how much I knew. Young women are now the ‘dominant demographic’ for the movie. From [The Guardian blog:](http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/jan/25/avatar-beats-the-dark-knight) > [@](#): > > Fox top brass have told me of anecdotal evidence of fans going back four or five times to watch Cameron’s space opera, and that’s exactly the kind of audience behaviour you need to generate the ridiculously high numbers that Avatar has done. In terms of audience profile, it’s women who are driving this beast. While young men turned out in droves in the first weekend – and they’re still seeing it in huge numbers – women caught on and became the dominant demographic by the time Avatar was in its third weekend. Many reports are saying that Avatar has now pulled past Titanic in international and US sales combined and that it’s on the verge of overtaking it in the US market too. My hat is off to Mr Cameron, that is an incredible achievement. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/424 "2010-01-25T20:58:53Z")
I’m split on what the success of this movie means for future mega-projects. On one side I’m glad that this will pave the way for more epic sci-fi f/x heavy films. On the other side of the coin though I fear a good complex story line won’t matter. Everyone seemed to be of the concensus that Avatar packed a punch visually but that the story was lackluster vanilla. Becasue of it’s massive success I fear studio heads will come to the conclusion that a well written story doesn’t really matter. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/425 "2010-01-25T21:35:05Z")
They’ll \*come to \*that conclusion? Pretty sure they were there already, and have been for… decades. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/426 "2010-01-25T22:09:38Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > I’d always thought that Avatar wouldn’t appeal to young women in the way Titanic did and that this meant it had little chance of overhauling Titanic. Shows how much I knew. Young women are now the ‘dominant demographic’ for the movie. That is very interesting, and in hindsight, I can see why. Avatar plays out as a love story (and, one where the girl doesn’t let the guy sink into the abyss at the end, instead of sharing her floating door with him). Titanic, women may have had to wheedle to get their men to go see; not so, Avatar. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/427 "2010-01-25T23:02:32Z")
The woman isn’t just an ornament or a damsel in distress for the hero either. That’s a signature of Cameron’s films. His female characters are always very strong, invidualistic, self-sufficient, and flushed out. Ripley, Sarah Connor, even Kate winslett in _Titanic_. A lot of action movies use women as little more than decorations and footballs for the men to fight over. Cameron makes them as powerful as the men. _Avatar_ really has two powerful female leads – the Na’avi woman, and the Sigourney Weaver character. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/428 "2010-01-26T00:56:00Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The woman isn’t just an ornament or a damsel in distress for the hero either. That’s a signature of Cameron’s films. His female characters are always very strong, invidualistic, self-sufficient, and flushed out. Ripley, Sarah Connor, even Kate winslett in _Titanic_. A lot of action movies use women as little more than decorations and footballs for the men to fight over. Cameron makes them as powerful as the men. > > _Avatar_ really has two powerful female leads – the Na’avi woman, and the Sigourney Weaver character. I agree. I was half-expecting Jakesully to tell Neytiri not to join the fight, that it’s too risky. And then she’d tell him where to go. Sort of like Trinity and Neo in the first Matrix movie. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/429 "2010-01-26T04:40:58Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > On one side I’m glad that this will pave the way for more epic sci-fi f/x heavy films. Keep looking at it this way. There are a lot of complex, interesting sci-fi books and stories that need to be told on film. The technology and the success of Avatar will help get some get made. The success of **District 9** and **Star Trek** helps there. **Moon** could have been a bigger success and an awards contender if Sony Classics had treated it as the first-class film it was, instead of dumping it in a few theaters, and ignoring its awards potential until fans started clamoring (and then they only had a few industry screenings and took out a few ads to shut up the fans…damn you Sony, thanks for releasing it in the first place, but still, Moon coulda been a contender, for Sam Rockwell as Best Actor if nothing else). **9** didn’t do well, and neither did **Pandorum** , but they were both decent movies, not great. **9** was seemingly too weird and **Pandorum** was seemingly too generic. > [@Hampshire](#): > > On the other side of the coin though I fear a good complex story line won’t matter. Everyone seemed to be of the concensus that Avatar packed a punch visually but that the story was lackluster vanilla. Becasue of it’s massive success I fear studio heads will come to the conclusion that a well written story doesn’t really matter. Ah, **Shot From Gun** is right, it’s always been that way. Don’t you think there were some people bitching about **The Wizard of Oz** compared to **Casablanca**? **It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World** compared to **The Haunting**? **Cleopatra (1934)** compared to **It Happened One Night**? Thousands of examples can be found. There’s nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to complaining about movies. Besides, not _everyone_ is “of the consensus” that the story of Avatar was lackluster vanilla. Ask a few tens of millions of people who are seeing it over and over and making it smash box office records all over the place. It’s straightforward, it’s not like The Matrix, but that doesn’t make it lackluster to us. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/430 "2010-01-26T18:17:22Z")
The Chinese are [renaming](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8480954.stm)a mountain in Hunan to the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain. Supposedly it inspired some of the scenery in the film. > [@](#): > > The renaming of the mountain is one of the several attempts by Zhangjiajie to capitalise on the success of Avatar. > People queue to watch Avatar in Anhui province, China (Jan 2010) > The film has been a huge success throughout China > > The municipal government website has also adopted the slogan “Pandora is far but Zhangjiajie is near”, while tourists are being offered tours of the locations which allegedly inspired the film, Reuters report ``` I think this film has reached a whole new level in terms of its impact on global popular culture. ``` ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/431 "2010-01-26T18:43:10Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > The Chinese are [renaming](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8480954.stm)a mountain in Hunan to the Avatar Hallelujah Mountain. Supposedly it inspired some of the scenery in the film. > > ``` > I think this film has reached a whole new level in terms of its impact on global popular culture. > > ``` Now if only the Chinese [could watch the movie](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/01/avatar-pulled-from-2d-screens-by-chinese-government.html)… ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/432 "2010-01-26T18:56:33Z")
[Apparently](http://www.boxofficefollower.net/2010/01/avatar-2d-is-back-in-china.html)the ban (which was only on 2-D screenings anyway) was partially reversed. > [@](#): > > The core reason for the change of heart? Apparently the attention surrounding the initial news has created such negative buzz on Confucius (many on Internet forums were calling for boycotting the film) that it was off to a dismal start on Friday. The rumor has that the figure could be less than 10m yuan ($1.5m), downright terrible for a release of this scale and a film that was supposed to be one of the pillars for the Chinese New Year holiday season. There is only so much the authority could do to facilitate the ticket sales of a film, and the situation with Confucius appears beyond saving that the only choice is to bring Avatar 2D back into theaters. > > So in the end, the original decision backfired completely. Avatar got more free publicity, and Confucius was unnecessarily hurt in the process. So the episode only reinforces the total awesomeness of Avatar.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/433 "2010-01-30T18:29:49Z")
Yet another strong weekend for Avatar coming up. 7.5million on [Friday](http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118014506.html?categoryid=13&cs=1)and it should make around 30 million for its 7 weekend coming no.1 yet again and beating the 7th weekend record handily. It should pass Titanic’s US record on Tuesday or Wednesday right around the time Oscar nominations are announced. It will be interesting to see if that double whammy gives it a bit of a boost. ``` It's looking good for 700 million in the US and perhaps 2.5 billion worldwide. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2010, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/434 "2010-01-31T23:21:07Z")
Yep. **Avatar** made [$30million](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/) in its 7th weekend as opposed to Edge of Darkness’s opening of $17million. That, even though it continues to lose theaters (down 67 from last week). For all the snarky (and really, tiring) references to “ticket sales/adjusted for inflation/the record is not what it seems” chirping, it’s pretty obvious that Avatar is very, very popular. On Tuesday it’s likely to get nominated for a slew of Oscars too. **Avatar** is $6million away from toppling **Titanic** , something I never thought would happen (Me, wrong: “It won’t even get close to **Titanic** ”). It’ll almost certainly pass tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/435 "2010-01-31T23:30:12Z")
Missed the edit window. It’s over [$2billion worldwide](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=avatar.htm) now too. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/436 "2010-02-01T00:30:46Z")
Wow. Just… wow. I never thought it would do this well, not by a long shot. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/437 "2010-02-01T01:33:26Z")
None of us did. I knew it wasn’t going to flop, the way many on the first page did, but it never crossed my mind that it was going to be this kind of phenomenon. It’s kinda thrilling to watch. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/438 "2010-02-01T01:54:29Z")
One **Titanic** record I’m pretty sure **Avatar** won’t break is weeks at #1. Titanic spent 17 weeks at #1, from [opening weekend](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=1997&wknd=51&p=.htm) on December 19, 1997, to April 3, 1998, when it was [finally knocked off](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=1998&wknd=14&p=.htm)by (cringe) Lost in Space. If **Wolfman** or **Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief** doesn’t do it February 12, **Shutter Island** doesn’t do it on the 19th, then **Alice In Wonderland** will almost certainly do it on March 5, unless the word of mouth is horrific, which it probably won’t be. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/439 "2010-02-01T02:31:59Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > None of us did. I knew it wasn’t going to flop, the way many on the first page did, but it never crossed my mind that it was going to be this kind of phenomenon. It’s kinda thrilling to watch. Unlike the movie itself. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/440 "2010-02-01T03:26:13Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Unlike the movie itself. That’s your opinion. I disagree. Tens of millions of other people all around the world disagree. Whatever floats your boat. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638.md?page=23)