An off-topic but interesting tidbit:
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.
Nitpick: It’s illegal. It’s debateable whether or not it’s wrong (i.e., unethical).
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:
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.
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.
They’ll *come to *that conclusion? Pretty sure they were there already, and have been for… decades.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Chinese are renaminga 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…
Apparentlythe ban (which was only on 2-D screenings anyway) was partially reversed.
So the episode only reinforces the total awesomeness of Avatar.
Yet another strong weekend for Avatar coming up. 7.5million on Fridayand 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.
Yep. Avatar made $30million 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.
Missed the edit window. It’s over $2billion worldwide now too.
Wow. Just… wow. I never thought it would do this well, not by a long shot.
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.
One Titanic record I’m pretty sure Avatar won’t break is weeks at #1. Titanic spent 17 weeks at #1, from opening weekend on December 19, 1997, to April 3, 1998, when it was finally knocked offby (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.
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.