# 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:** 12\ **Page:** 26
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/501 "2010-02-02T17:27:31Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > I mean, c’mon, seriously? _Pandora_? Not only is it an unoriginal name, it’s an unoriginal name that _doesn’t make sense_. (Hey, guys, we just found a new world! A habitable new world that’s full of awesome resources! I have an idea! Let’s give it a name that assumes it’s going to unleash all the evil in the fucking world onto us!) Pandora isn’t actually a bad name for the planet. Greek mythology is often used to name planetary bodies after all, and Pandora was the first woman, with a name meaning “giver of all”. Ok, there’s the whole Box incident, but still. What sort of name do you think we’ll give to the first habitable planet we encounter? Remember, it can’t be unoriginal! ---
**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:** [February 2, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/502 "2010-02-02T17:40:25Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > What sort of name do you think we’ll give to the first habitable planet we encounter? “Shot From Guns.” Original \*and \*classy. ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/503 "2010-02-02T18:18:13Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > I find it amusing that you can talk about “the creativity of Pandora” with a straight face. I mean, c’mon, seriously? _Pandora_? Not only is it an unoriginal name, it’s an unoriginal name that _doesn’t make sense_. (Hey, guys, we just found a new world! A habitable new world that’s full of awesome resources! I have an idea! Let’s give it a name that assumes it’s going to unleash all the evil in the fucking world onto us!) Well, it was probably named something like Alpha Centauri-II-B-3 when they first discovered it. After exploring it and discovering it was full of monsters that tried to kill everything that moved, Pandora seems like an appropriate name. And naming planets and moons after mythological figures is… pretty well established. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/504 "2010-02-02T18:23:15Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Pandora isn’t actually a bad name for the planet. Greek mythology is often used to name planetary bodies after all, and Pandora was the first woman, with a name meaning “giver of all”. Ok, there’s the whole Box incident, but still. What sort of name do you think we’ll give to the first habitable planet we encounter? Remember, it can’t be unoriginal! Myanus? ---
**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:** [February 2, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/505 "2010-02-02T18:24:24Z")
Hizasshol? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/506 "2010-02-02T18:25:08Z")
> [@stolichnaya](#): > > There’s no “real” way to compare films across the decades. Gross receipts is the current way of measuring the performance of a film, imperfections and all. By any measure, regardless of adjustment, Avatar is an unqualified success as a business endeavor, especially for something that had the distinct stink of waterworld about it and made the execs nervous. Rather, it has become a new original franchise with sequels that will cost far less than the original due to the technology developed in the first. This is a great success. > > The real amazing thing is the shallow slope of the gate decline- I’ve been watching this handy[google doc](http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AtkhPE8UcfKQdGI0UF9YYmxSZXAzb2hCakl2OGY5T0E&hl=en) every once in a while (can’t recall if it was already linked here), and it is striking how much business Avatar is retaining from week to week. It may be impossible to compare Titanic to Avatar, but both have been massive hits and Avatar is clearly continuing to leg it out. The Oscars, if kind, could even spike things up for a few weekends. Comparing it to Gone With the Wind is a mistake because of the way Theatrical releases prior to the advent of VHS. Films were re-released many times. Gone With the Wind and Star Wars both benefitted from this. This is why I don’t do the unadjusted numbers thing. Because it would be a completely different story if we adjusted Gone With the Wind to the first theatrical release only. Then we’d start nitpicking about proportion of the population, and how we should adjust for the fact that the competition Avatar faces in alternative media outlets today dwarfs the competition Gone With the Wind faced at the time. ---
**Author:** ![TheBoltEater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheBoltEater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBoltEater)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/507 "2010-02-02T20:06:14Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Comparing it to Gone With the Wind is a mistake because of the way Theatrical releases prior to the advent of VHS. Films were re-released many times. Gone With the Wind and Star Wars both benefitted from this. > > This is why I don’t do the unadjusted numbers thing. Because it would be a completely different story if we adjusted Gone With the Wind to the first theatrical release only. Then we’d start nitpicking about proportion of the population, and how we should adjust for the fact that the competition Avatar faces in alternative media outlets today dwarfs the competition Gone With the Wind faced at the time. I love the box office numbers - heck, I check out Box Office Mojo pretty much every day - but it’s really a terrible way to judge the success of a film these days. Gone With the Wind’s numbers (adjusted) are enormous exactly because if you loved it, and wanted to see it again, you had to go to the theater again. If you loved it in 1939 and wanted to see it again in 1971 you _still_ had to go to the theater for a re-release. Anyone who wants to see Avatar in the comfort of their own home can just wait a month til it’s out on DVD… assuming they didn’t buy a pirated copy of it three days before it was released in the first place. DVD is simply too big a factor in a film’s success to ignore it the way we do. By Box Office standards, The Shawshank Redemption is practically a disaster. It made a grand total of $28,341,469 in its entire run (according to Box Office Mojo, of course). But we all know the real story of that film is that (thanks to many tv reruns and massive DVD sales) it has become a huge hit and a critical and fan favorite. And ALL of that happened after it failed at the box office. The all-time domestic and foreign records are fun to watch and make for some entertainment (and betting, if that’s your thing), but you just can’t take it any farther than that in trying to figure out which is truly the “most successful” film of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/508 "2010-02-02T20:25:29Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > “Shot From Guns.” Original \*and \*classy. Sounds a bit pompous 😛 ---
**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:** [February 2, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/509 "2010-02-02T22:49:22Z")
> [@Red\_Barchetta](#): > > Sounds a bit pompous 😛 ‘Course it does. Takes after its eponym, natch’. ---
**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 2, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/510 "2010-02-02T23:02:22Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > You know what \*you \*sound like? Someone who can’t stand that something they enjoy might not be perfect in every conceivable way. _It’s okay to like things that aren’t perfect._ Even non-ironically. When have I ever said that **Avatar** was perfect? It’s not even in my Top 5 of favorite films of 2009. I’m not going to be rooting for it to win the Academy Award, there are 2-3 other (nominated, since my favorite films weren’t nominated) movies that come before it, though I won’t be disappointed if it does, just as I rooted for L.A. Confidential but was happy for Titanic when it won. Whatever, this stuff doesn’t even belong in this thread. Back on topic, **Avatar** is $2million away from Titanic. It’ll be #1 tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![MilTan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@MilTan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MilTan)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/511 "2010-02-03T18:46:31Z")
How’s that for poetry: [Avatar takes over the #1 spot](http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm) from Titanic the day the Oscar noms get announced. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638/512 "2010-03-06T21:22:00Z")
Avatar has held up nicely over the last month and crossed 700 million in the US and 2.5 billion worldwide last week. 800 million/3 billion is probably out of reach but who knows? Perhaps the Oscars will provide a bit of a boost even if as most expect Avatar fails to win a major award. On the flip side Alice ,which has opened big, offers the first big 3-D competitor for Avatar and will divert screens and box-office. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predicting-camerons-avatar-waterworld-or-titanic/519638.md?page=25)