Friday Estimates by Klady – Eli vs The Na'vi
Another strong start for a Joel Silver production after a bit of a rough run. This start is running a bit hotter than Denzel’s previous #2 opener, Inside Man, though while this reminds us that Denzel is a true movie star (meaning, he can open movies on his own), it is a concept piece that has the strongest action appeal since Avatar and then Sherlock Holmes opened last month.
it seems like that we’ll see a Cloverfield-like trajectory on the film… maybe a little less harsh. Look for a 3-day of just under $30 million… a 4-day of $33m – $35m.
Avatar will lose a day for the third time in its run (opening days for Sherlock and Chippys 2 were the other two), but like the last two times, it looks like a one day long event. Saturday rises have been erratic, in part because of the film playing through the holidays. Last weekend, it went up a crazy 60%, Fri-Sat. Let’s say it ends up off 25% for the 3-day… $37.5m for the 3-day… $43m for the 4-day, crossing the $500m domestic threshold on Monday, in 32 days, passing TDK’s 45 days to becomes the fastest film to ever hit $500m.
I am personally stunned to say, it now looks like Avatar will pass The Dark Knight‘s domestic #2 position by the end of next weekend. The film is already over $1 billion overseas. With over $1.5 billion by the end of this weekend, Avatar will be the #2 box office grosser of all time with or without the “3D bump.” Sorry haters… another scoreboard to suffer.
Paramount’s marketing reboot of The Lovely Bones will show itself more today, as teen girls are the target. Will the movie go up to $7m or $8m today, ending up with a $20m+ 4-day or will it roll with a more traditional trajectory and end up with $17m or so? We shall see.
The Spy Next Door felt a bit dumped… which won’t look so good when Sony’s The Karate Kid becomes a significant hit this summer. This is one of those cases when the studio should have just waited for another movie to rebrand their star. Jackie Chan and kids will be a real draw after “jacket on… jacket off.”
Who would have expected The Blind Side to outgross both Sherlock Holmes and The Squeakquel domestically? It looks like Sherlock will come up just short of $200m and Chippys 2 will just pass the mark.
Up In The Air is a bit confounding. $70m domestic is quite good for a dramedy with a message. But it’s, somehow, not exciting. Odd.
Last Saturday around 1:00pm at the local 18+Imax-plex:
ALL Imax shows for Avatar SOLD OUT Today.
Sorry, it was just Sunday. Posted before noticing typo. Preview is my friend
Noticed today that the local theater still has 2 screens of Avatar 3D with a total of 8 showings and 1 split screen of Avatar 2D with a total of 2 showings.
More people still saw TDK and Titanic in the theatre. So Avatar will not even be close to matching actual people who have seen the movie in a theatre but that seems to have been the point of 3D price increases. Get all the records with Trans 2 level work!
Avatar just passed Star Wars as the #3 domestic grosser. My sister in law and her fianc
IOIOIOI your not making any sense. Avatar still has plenty of gas left in its tank. Call me crazy but I think the film could reach two billion.
Re – Avatar and 3D ‘bump’. The amazing thing about Avatar’s numbers is not the size, but the consistency. It is about to gross $500 million in 32 days. It has done that with an opening weekend just $10 million larger than The Dark Knight’s first day and about $5 million larger than New Moon’s. It has not had a single day over $28 million in that time. Sure, if the movie had opened to $100 million+, dropped by 50-60% in weekend two, and then petered out in six weeks, then we could say that it was just a normal blockbuster with a 3D ‘bump’. But Avatar’s success is about the day-to-day constancy of its large numbers. Sure, there are some 1980s blockbusters (ET, Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop) that played week in and week out for half a year, but in modern times Titanic is the only thing that comes close.
Plus, what people are forgetting is that Avatar isn’t close to being finished at this point. In its fifth weekend, it’s still dropping by under 30% and pulling in weekend numbers that most films would kill for in their opening Fri-Sun. We honestly have no idea where the film will finish, so the final number may be so obscenely large that it will cancel out any ‘asterisk’ issues concerning inflation or the 3D/IMAX price factor.
IO, keep telling yourself that. It’ll make it more real.
Up in the Air confuses me.
It’s a good film. Jason Reitman is a very good filmmaker. He’s not a great filmmaker, at all. His films all lack a lot of zeal. That’s not to say he’s bad by any stretch, but his work lacks nuance. Everything is so easy in his films. The setups are easy, the resolutions are even easier.
I like Thank You For Smoking. Juno was directed well but i loathed the script. Up in the Air was a very good movie.
But the awards talk baffles me. Are films in such a state that a really good consistent director keeps getting lauded for movies that are consistently good?
Oh wait. Am i talking about Reitman or James Cameron.
Either way, i am just puzzled at the short list for awards season. Puzzled, i say.
I’m the opposite Anghus. I loathed Thank You For Smoking (full of dumb, unworld-weary people who were supposed to be smarter than us), but rather liked Juno (whatever issues the script has, the actors more than overcome them). I liked Up in the Air quite a bit, but I agree that it’s no all-time classic. Having said that, it’s an awfully good entry in a genre that is all-too rare, the big-studio adult character-driven drama. Like the adult star-driven thriller, entries in this category are graded on a slight curve for me because I’m always happy to see them. It’s why I cut Tyler Perry more than a little slack and why I am actually excited to see stuff like Shooter or Law-Abiding Citizen when ten years ago I likely wouldn’t have given either of them a second thought.
I agree with anghus’ last point; this is the weakest crop of Oscar contenders in my lifetime.
Just caught the last hour of Moulin Rouge on Cinemax again. Fuck, I love that movie – it’s slowly becoming one of my all-time favorite stumble-upon-it-on-TV-stop-everything-and-watch-the-rest movies, probably more so than any film from the last decade. I’m convinced that any “best performances of the aughts” list needs to at least consider Ewan McGregor in it, no question.
“I agree with anghus’ last point; this is the weakest crop of Oscar contenders in my lifetime.”
Weaker than 2005’s bunch (Brokeback Mountain, Crash, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, Munich)? 2004 wasn’t all that hot in retrospect either (Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, and Sideways).
For me, yeah, Hurt Locker is the only contender in the league of Capote, Brokeback, Munich, or Sideways.
I also was none too thrilled with Up in the Air. I was extremely excited to see it and had very high expectations, but it left me pretty cold and disappointed. I found the plotting obvious and the shifting between comedy and drama bumpy. Sure the acting is great and some of the banter is charming, but it certainly didn’t wow me and it sure as hell shouldn’t be an awards contender. Maybe I expected too much, but mostly it’s predictable and a little smug.
I didn’t care for Moulin Rouge, but Ewan McGregor not getting an Oscar nod that year was a crime. It was odd considering his inferior co-star, Nicole Kidman, was nominated for the film. Yet more odd considering said co-star was absolutely Oscar-worthy in a different, even more successful movie that year, The Others. I guess it’s the same ‘odd’ that will lead to Matt Damon getting nominated for his ‘Who-cares?’ turn in Invictus, and not his fantastic comic creation in The Informer.
Speaking of Moulin Rouge, I remember being puzzled why Baz Luhrmann did not get a nomination for directing that year. If there was a flick that had a clear vision that was put on screen by a director, it was Moulin Rouge.
I recall that was a good year for directors though.
Invictus? Really? I mean has Clint Eastwood really become the obligatory nomination? I finally caught up with Gran Torino….OMG what a piece of over directed, over acted under written ham fisted shiite. I sat stunned thinking this was the film everyone told me I had to see….Anyway I digress. Why all the love for Eastwood? Has his age become the spectacle that keeps people interested?
I also liked Thank You for Smoking much more than Juno. Juno’s script just pissed me off with the dialog and weirdo funky logic of a dude who wants to hook up with a 15 year old who’ll birth his adopted son…creepy.
The snappy dialog in thank you for smoking worked for me because of the absurdist slant of the story and subject matter.
When all is said and done about Avatar, I am condident of a few things.
1. It will be known as a hit.
2. It will be known as a hit that always will have an asterix beside its name because of not only the inflated ticket price, but also all of the hype and publicity and hoopla that came with it. This will always be a stigma to the film because…
3. Most people are seeing it because of the technology. It is not a very good film. That is why Cameron is making more comments addressing that he made the film to succeed in 2D, because he knows the general thinking is it does not. I know a lot of people who have seen Avatar but none that will give it an unqualified recommendation.
4. Avatar is not a phenomenon. It is a fad. As I said last week before I got really busy, if it was a phenom, games would be flying of the shelves, posters, books, cd’s, toys etc. None of that is happening to Avatar. Its success is strictly at the box office. It has not transferred to any ancillary industry. That tells me…it is not well loved. Liked maybe…but not loved. People are seeing it to see what all the hype is about based on the first waves of critics who gushed because they had they’re heads so far up Cameron’s ass they could taste his breafast.
5. When Avatar wins Best Pic and Director (and it will) it will solidify its rep as the worst film to win best pic in Oscar history. When the 2D version comes out on DVD, all of those crix who sold out because they loved Cameron’s technology and childish politics will have no cred.
“2. It will be known as a hit that always will have an asterix beside its name because of not only the inflated ticket price, but also all of the hype and publicity and hoopla that came with it. This will always be a stigma to the film because…”
Nicol, if it is always going to be a stigma, please list all the top grossing films in the past that deserve an asterisk because of inflated ticket prices or publicity/hoopla. I’m not aware of any sites that currently do.
I imagine that quite a lot of the top grossers of the past (if not the majority) have benefited from higher ticket prices due to the phenomena that they have created (and all benefit from publicity/hoopla). For some reason, distributors of popular films realised about 100 years ago that they could charge more for popular films. Therefore, these very popular films tend to gross far more than other releases.
Films in the past received roadshow releases which bumped their gross due to higher ticket prices; phenomena like Gone With the Wind would charge more, especially in re-release. None of the box office websites or audience today (from the posts on blogs like this) care about these matters. It will likely be the same for Avatar in the future. Avatar is going to be at least the second biggest grossing film of all time. It is likely to be profitable. That is all that matters to the people who have any interest in the film.
Razorr,
Can you back up some of these claims re: Gone With the Wind etc.
You are making some real generalizations about film history here that I have never heard (and I have taught the subject). I never paid more to see Star Wars in its re-release than the Nude Bomb. Just saying. Can you give me some citations.
Even 70mm presentations that I attended never had the price bump for films I saw in the 80’s and 90’s ( Die Hard, Lethal Weapon 3, Batman etc.)
Dark Knight and Potter has IMAX screenings, but they were not the bread and butter of the gross or marketing. For Avatard…that is the game. And the changer. Not the quality of the film itself, but the increased price you are paying for it.
Nicol, I buy a fair amount of what you’re arguing, but the worst film to win a best picture Oscar stuff is rather over the top. I think you’re memory is pretty hazy on a few of those turds from the 1950s that walked away with this prize.
Greatest Show on Earth is just awful. Around the World in 80 Days is also pretty lame. In fact, the latter is a bit of a parallel to your Avatar analysis: big-budget, cutting edge tech (w/ Todd-AO), wannabe epic, with minimal cultural staying power.
“5. When Avatar wins Best Pic and Director (and it will) it will solidify its rep as the worst film to win best pic in Oscar history.”
As you yourself say, it’s probably a “liked” film, so its rep, should it win those awards, would more likely be as the least liked film by Nicol to win best pic in Oscar history.
Greatest Show on Earth is flawed but I will take Jimmy Stewart as a clown on the run from the law with Heston in an Indiana Jones get up before New Age Na’vi flakiness with horrible 1 D characters and dialogue that sounds like nails on a chalk board any day.
“This is not Pagan Voodoo! It’s science!”
No Sigourney, it’s shit.
But you actually make my argument for me. Greatest Show and 80’s won for the same reason Avatar will win. A big garrish spectacle.
And if you read recent interviews with Cameron, you can tell he is getting defensive about it. Kinda like Bay did when people saw past the grosses.
Avatar is not a phenomenon.
“The Latest Charge Against ‘Avatar’: It Causes Depression”
You are making some real generalizations about film history here that I have never heard (and I have taught the subject)
Then why are you so relentlessly terrible at it
Nicol:
Please tell me one recent phenomenon that didn’t have hype, publicity, and hoopla surrounding it. Passion did, Harry Potter does, Titanic did, TDK did (tragically). Sorry, but you can’t discount a film’s success based on hype.
I’m not even an unqualified fan of the film, but it’s run is remarkable, however much you and your buddy IOIOIOI want to diminish it.
And who cares if it wins a freaking Oscar?? What don’t people understand about these dumb awards. They are voted on by industry people. Not fans, not critics. They are a measure of a very select group’s taste.
Face it Nicol, the fact that people all of the world have responded to Avatar’s story chaps your ass. Hence the transparent attempt to explain away it’s success. In Seth Rogan’s words: you’re just a whiny little bitch.
game set and match to the lethargic rabbit
Nicol nailed it again. If Avatar was really as big as it’s numbers there would be MORE GOING ON ABOUT IT! If you take away it’s bump, it’s barely grossed Transformers 2 numbers. That’s what he have here. That’s fucking solid. Really fucking solid but it’s not all-time number 2 or number 1.
Now, again, we have the all-time number 2 flick going up for Oscar against nine other films. Nominating it may get more people to watch the ceremony but more people saw TDK in the theatre, so that might not work. The nine other films will keep it for winning. I would go with Up in the Air or the Hurt Locker to bring it home. Hurt Locker winning just seems fitting for some reason.
PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD HAVE NOT RESPOND IN A WAY THAT MATCHES TDK, TITANIC, OR FUCKING ICE AGE 3! Jesus fucking Christ people, it’s not like the inflated ticket price is MAKE BELIEVE! IT’S REAL! Right now, some sorry motherfucker is pay 36 bucks for himself and his lady to see this film, and you want to act like that extra MONEY is not effecting this gross? What the fuck ever. Go put on some cat ears, attach a USB wire to your ass, shove it in the ass of a HORSE, and have a NICE!
Because it keeps getting mangled in the Avatar debate, please repeat after me, you guys (you too, “professional writer” Nikki Finke):
asterisk
asterisk
asterisk
Thanks.
Same asterisk as Maris… by next year, it will only be used by angry assholes.
I am endlessly amazed by the energy used to rage at the success at others for no real reason other than personal taste. These rationalizations about the 3D pricing and stupidest of all, the idea that Avatar marketing was more intense than other films… I mean…
Conversely, the same bullshit flies when someone doesn’t fall 100% in line with the beloveds of others. The notion that a B or B-plus for The Dark Knight was hateful.
I know that my anger at how media – Nikki, Waxman, others – covers some of these stories is seen as personal. But it’s not. And I always offer the specific, arguable reasons why stories are wrong or misleading. And the people who come in to rage at me and claim I am dead wrong never seem to address anything other than the personal. (Some disagree with me and it’s not personal at all… and that is why I have a blog and not just a column anymore.)
And the repetition of untruths – such as, Avatar had more marketing than Sherlock Holmes or 85% of all movies that cost over $100m to produce or the idea that the 3D bump is not being accounted for and that even then, Avatar has BURIED every film except for Titanic in popularity in the last 20 years – is pathetic.
This is the lesson of the web (and of Nikki Finke)… just keep repeating the lie and eventually people will tire of thinking about it and just buy the lies.
Horrible.
And IO can’t be as stupid as he/she/it seems… so I will just assume from now on that it is doing a comedy book about getting a rise out of people on the web and leave it at that.
Nicol: It was very common throughout the 1960s, and into the early ’70s, for theaters to charge higher ticket prices for movies presented in so-called “roadshow engagements.” And not just for advance-purchase tickets — I’m also talking about tickets you bought at the box-office right before showtime. So if you want to start affixing asterisks, I’m afraid you’ll also have to provide them for The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Dr. Zhivago, 2001: A Space Odyssey, reissues of Ben Hur and Gone With the Wind, and several others. Hell, you’d also have to affix them to Cinerama spectacles like How the West Won, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and Ice Station Zebra.
Nicol & IOIO
Bump or no bump Cameron made a film which compels people to pay the extra cheddar to see. That’s basic supply/demand economics. Monsters & Aliens didn’t seem to pull it off. Also please not that by day 15 of the release IMAX reported having grossed $100 million worldwide on Avatar. I think that’s a little more than 10% (didn’t avatar cross the 1 Billion mark by day 17)?
About the roadshow stuff in the 1960s-early 1970s: if you ever had the chance to pore over ads from entertainment sections of daily papers (likely only on microfilm) from that era and measure how the movie took a year to move from the premiere engagements to the second runs–four to six months later!–from five dollars to four dollars–and then to the local “dollar houses” for $2… the math’s always been maddening. Even months-weeks along those little tiny one-inch blocks for theaters mess with the latterday mind. Still, it seems to obtain: rare spectacle gets rewarded.
Nicol and IO are quite possibly the most idiotic nitwits to ever come to this place. Honestly. There is no other explanation.
“1. It will be known as a hit.”
Yeah, it will because it is. Is anybody debating this? Why even give it its own point?
“2. It will be known as a hit that always will have an asterix beside its name because of not only the inflated ticket price, but also all of the hype and publicity and hoopla that came with it. This will always be a stigma to the film because…”
Does The Dark Knight get an asterisk because it has an inflated ticket price compared to 1939? No it doesn’t. While we’re at it, let’s put an asterisk next to any movie in the English language since they have a much larger chance of succeeding Spirited Away made $200mil in Japan, but barely made $10mil in the US. Hence, proof positive that movies in the English language have an advantage. Now where’s that asterisk? SEE HOW STUPID THAT SOUNDS?! As I’ve said before, why penalise Avatar for taking advantage of technology? Seriously. You’re dimwits.
And, let’s face it, any movie that makes over $300mil can be said to have “buzz” and “hoopla”. Even a lot that do not have it (New Moon for instance). You seem to forget that this is the movie industry and that people like James Cameron are in it to make movies that MAKE MONEY! People complaining about this movie only being popular because it had “buzz” must be completely oblivious to what marketing means. Any movie would KILL to have buzz like Avatar has had since it first got screened.
“3. Most people are seeing it because of the technology. It is not a very good film. That is why Cameron is making more comments addressing that he made the film to succeed in 2D, because he knows the general thinking is it does not. I know a lot of people who have seen Avatar but none that will give it an unqualified recommendation.”
WHO CARES? The fact of the matter is that PEOPLE ARE SEEING IT! They are paying hard-earned cash to see this movie, whether it be only once or twice or three times of seven. These so-called “people who have seen Avatar” yet won’t recommend it are probably the same tree clubhouse members who you sit around with all day discussing what today’s latest left wing antics will bring upon the world.
“4. Avatar is not a phenomenon. It is a fad.”
Fads can be phenomenons. Remember Pokemon? Or any other craze from the last 50 years.
“5. When Avatar wins Best Pic and Director (and it will) it will solidify its rep as the worst film to win best pic in Oscar history.”
You clearly have not seen many best picture winners. As recent as A Beautiful Mind or as old as Cavalcade, you would be wrong.
So, again, you two are just idiots. And IO, The Dark Knight barely nudged itself past $1b worldwide so more people will have seen Avatar on a worldwide level. Or doesn’t the rest of the world count? Probably not to you because that prove all of your arguments as false.
How ignorant can you people get? No Camel, more people worldwide HAVE NOT SEEN AVATAR THAN THE DARK KNIGHT! It just did not happen. If you are showing to mostly 3D screens the world round, BZZZZZZZZ!!! NOT AS MANY PEOPLE ARE SEEING YOUR FILM AS THE PREVIOUS FILMS YOU ARE OVERTAKING BECAUSE YOU ARE CHARGING TWO TIMES THE PRICE THEY DID! It’s simple fucking math. Avatar is not that big of a movie. If you just factor in 20 percent. It’s barely grossed a BILLION worldwide. It’s barely grossed as much as TRANSFORMERS 2 here in the US. THIS IS WHAT’S HAPPENING. Every single record it breaks is fraudulent. If Warners really wanted to kick up a stink. They should run a story in EW explaining how this is happening and that will put the asterisk on this film that it deserves.
Again Camel, not that many people have seen it EVERYWHERE. You are simply following Poland’s lead by putting what you think I feel into my post but you two not exactly be ginzu knives. It’s understandable you would not get something this damn simple.
It’s a hit, but it’s only a Transformers 2 level hit. It’s inflated price should keep it off of any gross list, and it should start it’s own list of inflated grosses. Again, nothing wrong with charging people double for shit, but that does not necessarily mean it’s not shit.
Thanks Kamikaze.
In addition, why are these people holding AVATAR’s hype against it? If it made a billion without any hype whatsoever, would they then have been impressed? No movie can make money without some kind of hype.
i agree with just about everything Nicol said.
And not just based on my thoughts, but everyone i talked to over the last month, conversations i’ve overheard.
I know one person who was just floored by my average review of Avatar, so much so that he has brought it up on multiple occasions. He loved the movie and has seen it multiple times.
Everyone else when asked “did you like avatar?” paused, thought about it, and gave me a “it was pretty good” or “yeah, it was all right”. I don’t hear a lot of passion for it from the majority of people i talk to. Even the other day when i was at a Gamestop, i heard people talking about it and they were amazed by the visuals but thought the story was thin.
TOPIC CHANGE…
So last night i had a great discussion on Up in the Air. Same situation. A lot of like but very little love. But as i waxed philosophical something hit me.
The worst thing about Up in the Air was the casting of George Clooney.
The movie is about a guy who loves his commitment free life, who has mastered the art of solitude. But his exile is self imposed. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting if your lead character was not one of the most charming, attractive men on the planet?
I started thinking about what the film would have been with the character played as someone more awkward.
Paul Giamatti. Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
Someone whose quest for miles and alienation from his family comes from a more desperate place. Make the character someone who ONLY has his job, his speaking engagements. Make the love story more about someone who has no tether to humanity.
Yes, i realize this is all bluster and “this is what i would have done”, but the movie just seemed so vacant in a lot of ways. So much of it felt phoned in. By the the movie’s end, what in his life had really changed? For someone as charismatic as him, a return to his day to day life is once again self imposed. He traps himself in this life, so how does the viewer identify? They don’t. At least, i didn’t.
Oh, and the final scene with Natalie at the job interview felt like it was cribbed right out of The Devil Wears Prada.
IOIOIO,
You do realise that Avatar is still playing don’t you? It is still #1 at the box office. It has yet to open in some overseas territories.
If you really think it will end it’s run as a Transformers 2 level hit you’re out of your head. You could take 50% of it’s worldwide gross and it’ll beat Tranformers 2. Heck, I reckon you’d be able to halve it’s worldwide gross and it’ll still win. Easily. So unless you’re saying it’s 3D prices bump was over 100% then you’ve zero argument.
All the “Avatar” hype has spoiled people. I was on my way out of “Broken Embraces” — at an AMC — when the cleaning boy asked me what I had just seen. He is not to blame. The public has no choice but to see what they are told is the politically correct product.
“Avatar” at this particular AMC yesterday: Imax 3-D sold out early evening but not otherwise. Regular 3-D had plenty of tickets available. 2-D was gone. Yes, the 2-D version was already out of a megaplex. Fewer people would have seen the 3-D had the Philadelphia Eagles been playing last night.
“Oh, and the final scene with Natalie at the job interview felt like it was cribbed right out of The Devil Wears Prada.”
Thank you. And because the interview is in San Francisco – finally, a coastal city where Our Natalie can be free! – the interviewer HAS to be gay.
I think a much better sports metaphor than McGwire for “Avatar” in coming years is the introduction of the 3-Point line in the NBA. Some basketball analysts rightly point out that greats such as Jerry West, Pete Maravich, Oscar Robertson and others have deflated points totals because they played some or all of their careers without a 3-point line. Yet no one denies the 3 point line made the game much more exciting than it used to be and years later, people can’t imagine basketball without a 3-point line. I think the same will be true of Avatar.
@Adam Lapish, it’s opened everywhere except Italy now, but it still will probably pass Titanic’s worldwide total even so.
@Chucky…yes when a film is about to hit 500 million, or 400 million subtracting the 3D price premium, the audience starts to get played out. That’s how box office works.
“Get all the records with Trans 2 level work!”
Glad to hear that Avatar is no longer sub-“Trans 2”. Call that progress.
Book of Eli, earning as much as it did, though, is the opposite of progress.
That said, good for Silver, he deserves it after “Speed Racer”.
“Avatar is not a phenomenon. It is a fad.”
What’s the difference if it is a long-lasting, huge-money-generating fad? And it will be. THe online and merchandising, serialising potential is enormous.
Many people barked incessantly about Hello Kitty being a fad when it got big in the 80s in the US…yeah it’s a billion dollar fad still ongoing complete with a theme park and strikes a chord with many people…it’s like comfort food for many people.
Avatar may come from a different place than Hello Kitty but the results will be the same.
Avatar struck a chord with many people, fulfilling strange utopian needs to be in another world–
I was not blown away by it personally (I was visually but it did not “fulfill me” like District 9 did) yet I can see why it is huge, and everything Avatar will remain so for a long time.
Cameron knows how to make a movie a phenomenon or BIG FAD as some would snark–give the dude props for the abilities he has– to elicit strange sympathies from his audience and make them care [even if it may be cheesy like Titanic]…Terminator, The Abyss, Titanic, Aliens, Avatar
Unless Nicol is just jealous since Cameron is such a successful Canadian boy.
And major Props to Kathryn Bigelow for her Critics win! Bonza!
@EthanG: The AMC that I went to is in a county that gets its TV from Philly.
My drive home took me past a smaller non-chain multiplex. I looked closely and “Avatar” was not on the marquee. Yes, “Avatar” in 2-D was vaporized by “Avatar” in 3-D.
Face it, IOIIOIO – you lost this debate, it’s over. The film has had barely 25% drop-offs any weekend and barely 20% drop-offs any single days – people really like movie, get over it.
It IS going to end up selling more tickets domestic and worldwide than any other film of the past 20 years, outside of Titanic. And just like Titanic (and TDK), there will always be a vocal group proclaiming how overrated it is.
I pretty much decimated your arguments on the other blog, so won’t bother again – you were right on TDK, but you can’t win them all. Now move on and go see The Book of Eli – saw it last night, pretty good stuff.
“4. Avatar is not a phenomenon. It is a fad. As I said last week before I got really busy, if it was a phenom, games would be flying of the shelves, posters, books, cd’s, toys etc”
It’s all of 5 weeks old. All those Star Wars and Star Trek novels/games/conventions/key parties didn’t spring up overnight. Avatar is most certainly a box office phenomenon, as to whether it will be one culturally is something no one can answer absolutely one way or the other yet.
By the way, it’s perfectly okay to hate the movie while acknowledging it is making history performance wise. One point doesn’t detract from the other.
“It IS going to end up selling more tickets domestic and worldwide than any other film of the past 20 years, outside of Titanic. And just like Titanic (and TDK), there will always be a vocal group proclaiming how overrated it is.”
Worldwide I agree. Domestic no, let’s not carried away.
Catching “Spider-man” in attendance is a laudable goal, and it has a slim chance to catch “Shrek 2” and TDK.
The Phantom Menace is completely out of reach though. It would need to do nearly 800 million domestic to catch it. I wouldnt rule out 700 million at this point…but it’s not doing 800.
If Avatar does 700m. I am finished with film because it will be dead in my eyes at that point.
1. Pretty sure Avatar won’t win Best Picture. As in, I don’t think it’s gross will take it all the way.
Once again, DP’s confidence is wholly without merit. I’d say it matched his ability to predict box office but that would be aiming too low.
2. If Munich won Best Picture in 2006, it would have been the best Best Picture Winner in over a decade. Haters can suck it.
3. 2008 had the worst crop of nominated films in this decade by far. Taking into account what was ignored (and I don’t mean TDK) it gets even worse.
3. If Avatar were to win Best Picture it would still be superior to Slumdog, Beautiful Mind and Chicago.
4. IOIOIOI, it’s time for you to shut up. Avatar’s impact internationally is so much beyond what TDK has accomplished it’s not even funny. Take away the bump and give it all to TDK, and TDK would still lose.
I hope Tintin makes a billion dollars. I really and honestly do.
Luckily the truth is out there on that film. So everything is cool and Ethan G makes a good point about the 3 point line, but the 3 point line did not inflate Kobe’s, MJ’s, or Kareem’s numbers. STEROIDS aka 3D INFLATES NUMBERS! THOSE THE FACTS JACKS!
“Are your kids clamoring to go see Avatar? DON’T LET THEM! 3D is a headache inducing cinema price gauge that’s responsible for inflated box office gross. If you want your kids to stay cool. KEEP THEM OUT OF THE 3D THEATERS! IT’S FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY!”
The PSA sponsored by Finke for CHANGE.
Nicol: Regarding Gone With the Wind, I found a book backing up my claims of premium pricing.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b3az9jcXqnEC&lpg=PA176&dq=MGM%20wanted%20to%20open%20the%20picture%20nationally%20at%20ticket%20prices%20of%2050%20cents%20to&pg=PA176#v=onepage&q=MGM%20wanted%20to%20open%20the%20picture%20nationally%20at%20ticket%20prices%20of%2050%20cents%20to&f=false
This suggests that Gone With the Wind’s original ticket prices were around 75 cents to $2.20. The book suggests that the 75 cents was double the usual price of admission, although I think the average price then was only about 23 cents (i.e. it cost 3 to ten times the average price to see Gone With the Wind). A similar premium pricing was used for the 70mm reissue in 1967.
Many of the successful fims (especially before the ’70s) adopted a similar strategy. Thanks to Joe for also commenting on roadshow releases, although I think it dates back further than he says. It was definitely prevalent in the late 1940s and 1950s.
With the Cinerama premiums that Joe refers to, this seems to neatly tie in to the premium pricing which came back into fashion with releasing recent blockbusters in IMAX format.
Razor: Actually, you’re right, such pricing does date further back than the ’60s. Indeed, it goes all the way back to Birth of a Nation and the silent Quo Vadis. I was only dealing with my first-hand experience in case someone asked the inevitable question: Well, how do you know?
With regards Birth of a Nation, Variety’s review mentions that:
“It may not be amiss to pass away from critical comment for the moment to say that as D. W. Griffith, the world’s best film director, is and has been responsible for so many of the innovations in picture making, doing more to make filming an art than any one person, so D. W. Griffith has been the first to bring a “$2 picture” to the box office of a “$2 theatre.” When it was first reported about this “Griffith feature” would retail to the public at a $2 scale, the picture people shrugged their shoulders, said “50 cents at the most” and let it go at that. But as so many options of pictures and their possibilities have gone wrong, so, it appears, is the belief that there can not be a $2 picture as erroneous as many of the others. But it is fitting that Mr. Griffith should have so far progressed and advanced in the art he did so much to foster and improve until he became the first director of a successful film that can compete in $2 theatres with $2 stage productions. That is the concise picture record of a few years, within ten at the most, and for feature pictures, even less.”
So ticket prices for the film reached $2 compared to an average price of around 10 cents!
I’m sure there were people bleating then about putting an asterisk against that film’s results (Variety didn’t put it on its all time list for decades, although not for that reason).
It doesn’t seem that much has changed in 97 years.
Here’s the problem with asterisking box office grosses over how those grosses were obtained: Box office gross figures measure box office grosses, regardless of how they are obtained. All you people thinking there needs to be an asterisk are using the figure incorrectly: as an approximation of tickets sold. But David Poland just posted an incredibly long post detailing why this is faulty logic. There are always numerous irregularities with pricing that make it foolhardy to try to make it a stat about admissions. True, it can be used as an approximation, especially if you mention influencing factors, such as likelihood of higher-than-usual matinee admissions or whatever. But to say Avatar needs an asterisk is to be willfully ignorant of the big picture: If you’re inferring admissions from grosses, every movie needs an asterisk.
Also, this fad vs. phenomenon distinction is idiotic. For two reasons: (1) it’s an absurd over-simplification of a complicated picture; (2) five weeks into release is laughably premature to draw conclusions about Avatar’s staying power (or lack thereof). Nobody knows yet. Nobody. Anybody who says otherwise, one way or the other, is more interested in axe-grinding than intelligent discourse.
In closing, I’ll also add that having an axe to grind over the interpretation of box office grosses is one of the most pathetic axes in the history of grinding. Seriously, what the hell does it matter if Avatar sold one more ticket than TDK or vice versa? Or if Avatar is more accurately a “fad” (whatever that is) or a “phenomenon” (whatever THAT is). Either way, Avatar is damn big, and “damn big” is plenty precise enough.
Razor and Sam: To be brutally frank, some of these people pissing and moaning about Avatar box-office figures remind me of the Birthers. They simply cannot accept what has happened (and continues to happen), so they grasp at any straw, imagine any conspiracy, seek out any mitigating circumstance, so they don’t have to deal with the unpleasant (for them) reality that a black man is now US President, or a movie they intensely dislike is about to be hailed at the No. 1 Box Office Hit of All Time. They’re about as laughable as DP back when he was making excuses for the disaster of Speed Racer. The big difference is, eventually, even DP had to give it up. Nicol and IO, in contrast, are like those Japanese soldiers on the far-flung Pacific islands, fighting on and on and on…
Well, ticket prices being higher does have a big impact on the money it makes, so it’s fair to talk about it…but what people like IO willfully ignore, is that unlike other blockbuster movies, Avatar isn’t dropping 50% every week. And it didn’t have the opening of Transformers 2 or Dark Knight. But it’s still going to whomp their asses, and if people weren’t interested in the movie, it wouldn’t have 3D pricing or not.
I would also like to quote IO:
“If Avatar does 700m. I am finished with film because it will be dead in my eyes at that point.”
Now as a big city lawyer, I’d like to mention that IO did not specify Avatar making $700 million domestic. This reads like if Avatar makes $700 million TOTAL, he is done with film. Ergo, to wit, I would like to say that Avatar has made over that amount counting foreign box office, and that IO should concede that he is now finished with film. And anyone who is finished with film has no business posting on a film blog, therefore IO will never post here again. I’m sorry IO, but you wrote a contract and you must abide by your own rules. Thank you.
It even has a decent chance at making $700 million domestic. (If it performs like ROTK from now on, for example).
If that happens, IO should shoot himself.
Perm, before we get silly, HOW CAN IT DROP EACH WEEK WHEN IT HAS AN INFLATED BUMP? It’s not dropping because of the bump. It’s that simple. If you factor in the bump, it has been dropping each week. It’s not a blockbuster, it’s numbers are not real, and it should be number one on it’s own list of INFLATED GROSSERS ALL-TIME.
Again, if you want to be blissfully ignorant about this film’s impact, and about what it’s REALLY GROSSING, then go right ahead. You are simply fucking moronic with a good helping of ignorant. You also have some of Cameron’s secret sauce on your faces. Wipe it out and get respectful.
Back to Perm; I here you fucked a fat black woman back in 1991, and that your kid in that situation inspired PRECIOUS. You must be so proud that Mo’Nique won tonight in honour of that big fat pig you stupped so 19 years ago.
Oh yeah fuck David Poland, fuck Jeff McMahon, and fuck half of you. BABA BOOEY TO YOU ALL!
IO: In the immortal words of Marvin Gaye, “Got to give it up!
Joe and others: I don’t think the birther comparison is fair. When one film has a 22-25% bump over normal prices and a film like “Dark Knitght” has maybe 4% that IS a legitimate difference. If TDK had been shot in 3D it would have been the film to break “Titanic’s” record, and we would be talking about TDK being the film to beat…then again obviously TDK made a consious choice NOT to shoot in 3D as people on the other side will argue. But still I think a 2-3 dollar price premium per ticket counts.
Saying it’s equivalent to the birther movement is disingenuous because it is a fact that Avatar HAS and probably will end up with fewer tickets sold than The Dark Knight and FAR fewerr than The Phantom Menace.
And The Godfather probably sold fewer tickets than Gone With the Wind had when Godfather got the No. 1 title. Your point?
Dear stupid dumbass IO…even if a movie has an inflated price, if people were not interested, the amount it makes week by week would lower and lower by a lot. Like, Transformers would drop about 40% week by week…and it dropped 60% after the first weekend (was it a Wed opening maybe). Indiana Jones dropped 50% off it’s first weekend, then there are a lot of 40% drops after that.
By contrast, Avavtar is not dropping 50% or 40%. Which mean, taking ticket price out of the equation…that people keep going to it. And in a way, that’s even better seeing as it costs more than the average movie. Would people still be going to GI Joe if it were in 3D? Have people kept going to ANY other 3D movie in such droves.
The answer is no, idiot.
And Joe, that is why people like me like to take into account adjusted gross, even though DP hates it. But I like the historical context instead of making every weekend in the present day a horserace.
Perm: Fair enough. But remember — If you’re going to measure the size of the audience, as opposed to the size of the box-office gross, the No. 1 of all time is Jesus (1979). Seriously. And if you’re going strictly by ticket sales, there are many who’ll argue that The Birth of a Nation probably is No. 1 — but that cannot be proven beyond dispute, because of dodgy record-keeping during the early days of cinema.
@Joe
I didn’t realize that in addition to inflation, Godfather had a 3D price premium! My point is inflation is one thing…but that if a film has an additional massive advantage via a premium it needs to be put in context. The Godfather came out 33 years after Gone With the Wind.
Avatar came out a year after TDK and 5 years after Shrek 2. I think it’s AMAZING that Avatar has done this box office, especially as an original screenplay. At the same time, I don’t think it’s totally irrelevant that it will sell fewer tickets than Shrek 2 before it’s annointend the greatest film since Titanic.
Well, that’s fine with me. I don’t mind talking about Jesus being the biggest movie ever. At least it’s more interesting than talking about the list of all time box office hits, which of course are mostly movies from the last 15 years or so…maybe Star Wars and ET are on there because they were re-released a few times.
But, you know…fuck a Pirates of the Carribean sequel being number 8 of all time.
EthanG: I don’t think anyone is saying it’s “the greatest film since Titanic.” They’re saying it’s the biggest money-maker since Titanic. because it is.
You know what I meant. Yeah I agree it’s made the most money but Im just keeping in mind…
Avatar is going to move 20-25% fewer tickets than The Phantom Menace with probably 300% more box office coverage. I just think that’s a little relevant even if Im alone…I just think the fact more people saw Shrek 2 is funny given the amount of coverage.
Ethan: Again, as I have posted elsewhere: NCIS is the highest-rated scripted drama on network TV most weeks, but Gossip Girl gets tons more press coverage. Life isn’t fair.
Haha I didn’t say it was. Im just trying to strive for some moderation in a thread that seems to have lost it. Geoff’s (sorry to pick on you dude) outlandish claim that Avatar is going to sell the most tickets since Titanic by a ton when it’s likely in a race for 4th or 5th since Titanic shouldn’t go unchallenged just because it’s on the gravy train of IO bashers.
Oh for fuck sake, IO. Can’t you get it through your impossibly thick head? “Again, if you want to be blissfully ignorant about this film’s impact, and about what it’s REALLY GROSSING,” the numbers that Avatar is grossing IS REALLY GROSSING THAT MUCH! It’s not like Fox are just adding an imaginary 3D number onto the weekly numbers. People are ACTUALLY GOING TO A CINEMA AND PAYING MONEY TO SEE AVATAR. Ergo, it’s gross is its gross.
The so-called bump that you say is not allowing it to drop substantially every week has hit most 3D films (Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Coraline, etc). That is why movies are being made in 3D, because there is substantial proof that if it is made in 3D then there’s a chance for better returns. Sometimes it doesn’t work (Jonas Brothers), but at least so far it seems to be the case. The fact of the matter is that Avatar is making a lot of money in 3D and that The Dark Knight or New Moon or any of your other pet projects were NOT made in 3D and, thus, could not reap the benefits of it in regards to their box office gross. It’s not Cameron’s fault that he happened to choose the right project with the right format and that people are going to see it. How long is it going to take you to realise?
And, seriously, $1.002bil versus $1.602bil as of typing this? With so much more money left to make is there any doubt that more people will have seen Avatar in cinemas? It could make $2bil, IO! TWO BILLION DOLLARS! And you’re thinking that one billion of that is made up on the extra $3 thrown on to the 3D ticket?
And, hey, even if there is then – yet again – why are you angry at James Cameron for recognising the potential windfall that there was. Christ on a bike.
Perhaps the craziest thing to come out of all of this is the absurd notion that James Cameron should feel guilty for actually getting people to go the movies. People aren’t saying “I’ll wait for DVD” they are going to the cinema and paying more money than they normally would (and during a financial crisis at that) to see a movie. As if it is bad that he has the nerve to make a movie people WANT to see in such large numbers.
Some people are so bloody clueless.
Let me just add that saying Avatar will sell more tickets than any film since Titanic, is more factually inaccurate than saying it won’t sell as many as Transformers 2….just trying to keep perspective.
When Avatar hits 2 LARGE, which it will, all yall TDK underoos boys can suck Avatar’s hairy nuts.
That’s about the level of response you punk bitches deserve.
JUST FOR LAFFS
Clearly I will deserve the same fate, as an obvious “Phantom Menace” underoos wearer;)
EthanG, you keep harping on this, see the below chart:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm
That’s where I got my infomation from, though I am not sure how 100% accurate it is, but it’s the closest thing out there.
According to Box Office Mojo, Phantom Menace made $623 million in 2010 dollars – I think Avatar has a pretty strong shot at passing that, at this point. Going back 20 years, the only other films at that level in present dollars are Jurassic Park at $633 million (another film it is likely to pass) and Titanic at $943 million, which it has no shot at.
Now, you’re going to rail about the 3D bump, but I can tell you that A LOT of premium pricing was launched for The Phantom Menace, when it came out – there were thousands of theaters that converted to digital and/or THX before the release and charged more as a result.
And if you look on that chart, in present dollars, Avatar is going to be in the Top 20 of all time – pretty damn impressive. Even more impressive when you realize that at least half of those films (Star Wars trilogy, The Exorcist, ET, pretty much even Disney film) had heavily promoted re-releases to pad their grosses in the past 20 years.
But we can move on to other box office stuff – It’s Complicated is likely to break $100 million in this landscape, damn impressive. And people keep talking about Sherlock Holmes like it has underperformed, but sorry, I did not see this thing grossing $200 million a few weeks before it’s release – this is a Guy Ritchie film, for christ sakes! That would be like a Michael Winterbottom film becoming a blockbuster – strange story that has been under-reported.
Ethan, I don’t think anybody is saying more people will have seen Avatar than Titanic. I, at least, am saying that more people will have seen Avatar than The Dark Knight.
@Geoff, I don’t recall that being true at all. I DO recall there being price premiums for the Star Wars Special Edition in 1997.,,,not TPM though, and I suspect if there was it was in the range of TDK’s 4% IMAX bump. (BTW, Attack of the Clones was the first SW IMAX release)
@Kamikaze Ive seen exactly that claim on this thread on others. I’m not trying to diminish Avatar’s accomplishments, I think it’s on par with some of the biggest films of the last few decades.
BTW as DP has made clear it’s almost impossible to get EXACT numbers for attendance because it simply isn’t tracked. However, 670 million domestic is just about the number it needs to suprass Shrek 2 and TDK in that category which actually seems doable.
Sherlock Holmes’s performance IS impressive, as it did about the best it could have hoped for WITHOUT Avatar crushing everything in sight. I was absolutely expecting around $65 million opening with about $200 million finish, and that was before Avatar actually lived up to the hype. I suppose now we must wonder how well it could have done if it was the big fish over the end of 2009. I suppose the lack of coverage on Holmes is partially due to the very meh word of mouth from critics and audiences. I don’t know anyone who actually loved the picture. As far as ticket premiums, pretty much every theater raised ticket prices right at the beginning of summer 1999. My tickets for The Mummy were about 25 cents more than the previous admission prices.
Boxofficemojo and similar sites actually DO take ticket price inflation into account…they have a 21% higher increase from 1998 to 1999 for instance, than they do from 1999 to 2000 for instance.
Overall across the board price increases are taken into account. It’s stuff like 3D, IMAX, and early prestige releases (ie Dreamgirls and many Disney animated films) that aren’t adjusted.
Ethan, I’m talking – and have been doing so in every reply – on a worldwide level since I actually live in the magical world of “international” grosses that IO seems to forget exists. Phenomenons/fads/crazes/etc are not limited to America.
but kam, our money doesn’t count like the USD because the ‘foreign’ numbers are unreliable and there are exchange rates and dodgy banking practices and the people doing the maths have ACCENTS and stuff. the US box office is the REAL indicator of a film’s success. and don’t you forget it!
Doy! Of course. How could I have been so silly. Being the highest grossing movie of all time in many, many countries still doesn’t make it anything close to a “phenomenon”.
Just fyi, there is a very real possibility that Avatar could make $100mil in Australia. Considering the previous record holder was Titanic on $57mil..? Take that any way you like.
Camel, what got up your ass to believe that I am discounting INTERNATIONAL GROSSES? If it grosses 2 billion worldwide with a 20 percent to 30 percent (I am starting to think the bump percentage is low), then you have to realize this… 25 percent of (2 billion U.S. dollars) = 500 million U.S. dollars. It’s still number two but when you have HALF A BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF BUMP. It’s not exactly easy to ignore it.