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Avatar 2 officially titled Avatar: The Way Of Water, releasing in NA on December 16

Days like these...

Have a Blessed Day
I totally agree with you, and I don't see Avatar 2 breaking the all time record. It just won't do it. The world has changed and COVID is running rampant, and you can see that plainly, evident by a disastrous 2022 at the box office. Look at Wakanda Forever....talk about underperforming.

But The Way of Water is already outpacing Top Gun: Maverick...so don't be surprised if it chugs along, slowly but surely, and arrives at an impressive number...similar to what Top Gun did.
I don't know what the projections we're for Wakanda Forever but a sequel without it's star was a tough sell still I don't think it did too badly.

I don't think Way of the Water will do 2 billion optimistically maybe 1.5
 
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ZehDon

Gold Member
,,, I don't think Way of the Water will do 2 billion optimistically maybe 1.5
It's hard to say right now. Cameron's prior movies - Titanic and Avatar - both seemed to defy gravity. Hell, Titanic didn't have its biggest one day until the Valentine's Day after it's release. Will Way of Water follow that kind of trajectory? Hard to say right now.
 

pramod

Banned
Just got back from a viewing.

Yes the CGI is mindblowing.
But story, dialogue, everything else, is all quite cliche, nothing original, and in many parts kind of illogical.
So I think ultimately to determine how you feel about this movie, whether it's a "great" memorable film or just a way to pass the time, you have to ask yourself:
Did you really like the first one?
Are you really invested in these characters and the world of Pandora?

For me, the answer is no and no. So while I can definitely appreciate the technical achievement, ultimately it just felt like a really really long video game cinematic.
 
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Days like these...

Have a Blessed Day
It made fucking 435 million in one weekend and it’s not even Christmas 🤣 that’s so bad .. Jesus Christ you are a sad hater .

It came in way below expectations even Disney revised their forecast down. Do you have anything meaningful to say or you just going to keep spamming hater?
 
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FunkMiller

Gold Member
It made fucking 435 million in one weekend and it’s not even Christmas 🤣 that’s so bad .. Jesus Christ you are a sad hater .

It’s well under expectations.

It could still leg out to a huge box office if it’s lucky, but you can’t deny the hard numbers.
 
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Days like these...

Have a Blessed Day
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FunkMiller

Gold Member
The Monday box office is pretty soft for this. 16 million.

Seems like it's going to follow the pattern of most blockbusters these days, instead of defying gravity like the first Avatar did.

Tracking the same as Rogue One, which closed out at only just over a billion. And that had the weight of the Star Wars franchise behind it.

Avatar 2 needs well over a billion to break even.

Jennifer Lawrence Oops GIF
 
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Chiggs

Gold Member
The Monday box office is pretty soft for this. 16 million.

Seems like it's going to follow the pattern of most blockbusters these days, instead of defying gravity like the first Avatar did.

Tracking the same as Rogue One, which closed out at only just over a billion. And that had the weight of the Star Wars franchise behind it.

Avatar 2 needs well over a billion to break even.

Jennifer Lawrence Oops GIF

And yet also the 2nd best Monday of 2022.

But yeah…all eyes on this weekend and next.
 

Jaybe

Gold Member
People seem to flock to the higher quality showings, the 3Ds/IMAX and thus the 2D showings aren't selling out as much.
This. The box office revenue it generates is constrained by the availability of the premium screens. We’ll need to give it three weekends to see where it’s at. It will have the IMAX screens to itself at least until Antman in mid-Feb.
 
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FunkMiller

Gold Member
And yet also the 2nd best Monday of 2022.

But yeah…all eyes on this weekend and next.

Bizarre, isn't it? The fact that people can seriously be talking about that being a soft number shows just how ridiculously expensive movies have become to make and put out. It's going to clear a billion, but if it doesn't do better than Top Gun, it will be seen as a disappointment... probably justifiably so, given the idiotically high budget total it took to make it and advertise it.
 
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Billbofet

Member
Is a lot of the cost in this series already paid for (r&d, technology, etc.) that the remaining films would cost significantly less than 2?
Meaning is this "2 billion dollar bet" for the cost over the series, or all on this latest movie? Genuinely curious as I don't know how this works.

It's already globally at over 55% of what Wakanda Forever is at and in less than a week. It also has a clear path through the end of the year, so I think it will do quite well.
I liked the movie but have no dog in this fight. Isn't it too soon to call this a "failure?"
 

Lasha

Member

Opened in Japan in 2nd place with $3.9 million despite being released on more screens than any other film before it. It was beaten by a basketball anime.
Asian franchises commonly beat out western franchises during opening weekends in Asia. I think "Your Name" and "Ip Man 3" beat out one of the Star Wars films. Slam Dunk is definitely a stronger franchise than Avatar in Japan.
 

ZehDon

Gold Member
Is a lot of the cost in this series already paid for (r&d, technology, etc.) that the remaining films would cost significantly less than 2?
Meaning is this "2 billion dollar bet" for the cost over the series, or all on this latest movie? Genuinely curious as I don't know how this works...
Hollywood accounting is a funny business, so it's never easy to say, but effectively Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 are filmed. Mo-cap is done, live action is done, etc., and I believe the first act of Avatar 4 is mo-capped. If they front-loaded the production expenditure onto Avatar 2, then it could actually shoulder the entire budget for both films, meaning USD$2b to break even isn't actually outside the realm of possibility. It all comes down to how the bean counters decided to spread out the cost. It's likely they wanted Avatar 2 to pay for both films, in the same way Fellowship of the Ring paid for the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, and given Cameron's track record, it's really not insane to bet that his next big film could bank USD$2b - especially if you gave him a blank cheque and left him the fuck alone. Avatar 4 and 5 haven't been done yet, however, so I doubt their costs are included.
 

Chiggs

Gold Member
Asian franchises commonly beat out western franchises during opening weekends in Asia. I think "Your Name" and "Ip Man 3" beat out one of the Star Wars films. Slam Dunk is definitely a stronger franchise than Avatar in Japan.

Not sure the Japanese will appreciate the whaling aspect of Avatar 2. Probably one of the few blockbusters in recent memory that manages to critique everyone. ;)

HFR issues at some cinemas didn’t help, either.

I liked the movie but have no dog in this fight. Isn't it too soon to call this a "failure?"

Same here, and I’m seeing it again this week. Definitely not a failure, but it is highlighting the challenges of the current box office climate.

I’m convinced that Avatar and Endgame will hold their spots for quite some time.
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Its weird that the expectations are so high for a sequel appearing 13 years after the original to be honest.

The original was hyped huge -especially for the 3d- at the time, but the build for this seems kinda muted too.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
I hope there is a really detailed tech book, those guns, exp suits, and vehicles were AWESOME. Wouldnt surprise me to hear Cameron develops a real set of that kickboxing exo frame by avatar 4 :p
 

Lasha

Member
Not sure the Japanese will appreciate the whaling aspect of Avatar 2. Probably one of the few blockbusters in recent memory that manages to critique everyone. ;)

I notice thats one group of POC that activists don't have a problem being whitewashed.
 

pramod

Banned
Not sure the Japanese will appreciate the whaling aspect of Avatar 2. Probably one of the few blockbusters in recent memory that manages to critique everyone. ;)

HFR issues at some cinemas didn’t help, either.



Same here, and I’m seeing it again this week. Definitely not a failure, but it is highlighting the challenges of the current box office climate.

I’m convinced that Avatar and Endgame will hold their spots for quite some time.

The harpoon gun even had Kanji characters on it....not very subtle.
 
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octiny

Banned

Yep. It's clearing a billion once Xmas weekend is done.

It'll be adding (and has) between 55m-60m WW each day mon-thursday which puts it at 665m+ WW before the huge Xmas weekend even starts.

Normally we'd be looking at around 34m-43m Friday, 27m-35m Saturday (historically drops on Xmas eve, but its a sat. which softens the blow), 40m-50m on Xmas day, domestic only. So a second weekend take of 102m-127m, based off % drops/rises last Xmas from No Way Home. However, the weekend is a little skewed. if we were to follow the path of Star Wars: Rogue One % drops/rises on the same 4 day weekend (Xmas falling on Sunday), Friday take may only be around 25 million which would drop Saturday to around 20 million, Xmas Sunday to 35m-40m w/ Presidents Day essentially adding another huge day (historically) of 40m-45m day which will put Avatar 2 at 785m-795m WW. The end result is the same either way.

Add in oversea numbers from the 4 day weekend of 80m+75m+90m+75 & we are looking at a total haul of around 1.1b WW by the end of the 4 day weekend. Give or take a little. A 30/70 take just like the first Avatar.

The entire week following Xmas will be huge as well. It should be at 1.5 billion+ by end of Jan 1st. Which puts 2 billion+ as a no brainer by end of January.
 
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I hope there is a really detailed tech book, those guns, exp suits, and vehicles were AWESOME. Wouldnt surprise me to hear Cameron develops a real set of that kickboxing exo frame by avatar 4 :p


And for the first movie, there's a 2009 book and one that came out this year
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Ah, cool. Lucasarts has similar books for Star Wars. I was hoping for more technical drawings like the Star Wars vehicles books but the Visual Dictionary series is pretty good for SW so I got it for Avatar as well. Might consider the other books at some point.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Yep. It's clearing a billion once Xmas weekend is done.

It'll be adding (and has) between 55m-60m WW each day mon-thursday which puts it at 665m+ WW before the huge Xmas weekend even starts.

We're looking at a 35m-42m Friday, 27m-35m Saturday (historically drops on Xmas eve, but its a sat. which softens the blow), 40m-50m on Xmas day, domestic only. So a second weekend take of 102m-127m. Which will put it at 765m-790m WW.

Add in oversea numbers from the weekend at 85m+95m+80m (Sunday & Sat. could flip) & we are looking at around a total haul of around 1.03b-1.06b WW by the end of Xmas weekend. Give or take a little. A 30/70 take just like the first Avatar.

The entire week following Xmas will be huge as well. It should be at 1.5 billion by end of Jan 1st. Which puts 2 billion+ as a no brainer by end of January.

That feels a little too optimistic to me, but it'll certainly be around Top Gun.
 

JusticeForAll

Gold Member
I didn't particularly love or hate the first film. I really enjoyed this one though. Sure, the story and characters are a bit cliché, but visually it's just immense. I did see it in the best circumstances though, meaning imax 3d. I don't think I would like it as much if I would watch it at home for example.
 

Xenon

Member
I enjoyed it. It was a visual feast of course but the 3d seemed more in the screen than out. Reminded me of the Disney Pixar 3d. It's been a while since I saw the first, though I remember it being more immersive.

The story and pacing were better than the first. While it does offer up a cartoon version of humanity being evil, I saw no attempt to virtue signal contemporary issues. Also I feel like the characters weren't filtered for modern Audiences. It's sad that that's actually remarkable. Sure it's a little cheesy and sure some of the stuff is pretty cliche about at the end of the day it's an excellent crafted movie.

Paid $27 for an IMAX 3D ticket here.

Paid $13 for a matinee with convenience fee
 
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FunkMiller

Gold Member
Box office has started off all over the place on this. Weaker than expected OW, weak Monday, very strong Tuesday, weak Wednesday...
 

Represent.

Represent(ative) of bad opinions
As a true graphics whore, this movie was orgasmic. Fucking beautiful visual effects, VFX, motion capture, etc.

Overall though I was still slightly disappointed in the final battle. I felt the scale was much smaller than the first one. I get the reasoning (it was focused on the family vs the first one focusing on an entire recruitment of an army) but I still wish the battle was on a larger scale after a 13 year wait.
 
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jason10mm

Gold Member
As a true graphics whore, this movie was orgasmic. Fucking beautiful visual effects, VFX, motion capture, etc.

Overall though I was still slightly disappointed in the final battle. I felt the scale was much smaller than the first one. I get the reasoning (it was focused on the family vs the first one focusing on an entire recruitment of an army) but I still wish the battle was on a larger scale after a 13 year wait.
Yeah, given how similar the plotting and pacing was to the first film I was kinda expecting a LEVIATHAN sea creature to pop up, driven by Eywa/Weavers kid, to just wreck shit. Something that just told the humans "go fuck off, you puny little things".
 

Days like these...

Have a Blessed Day
Nah, MCU is always front loaded w/ massive drops. They couldn't be less comparable.

It's a marathon for Avatar 2 & always has been. It'll navigate a similar path to Top Gun Maverick in terms of drops week by week, especially w/ that 3+ hour runtime. The extremely minimal Thurs/Friday to Saturday drop off is already proof of that.

It should make 130+ million domestic over Xmas weekend. Possibly even more than it's opening weekend. Xmas is huge, especially for a movie like this. All movies receive a nice increase.

It'll be around 450+ million domestic by end of Jan. 1st, as each mon-thursday w/ schools out will perform like mini weekends. 625+ million by the 15th.

There's no direct competition for like 3 months.

I'm more worried about the whole Covid thing in China becoming a problem again, shutting down over half of its originally estimated screenings. Unless the Covid situation improves there, it'll be lucky to even make what the first one made there at this rate. That would be a huge blow as Avatar was the biggest American movie ever there at the time. It only made 200 million originally, but that would've translated much higher for the sequel due to how big the China market is now for movies 13 years later (overtook the US). Even the re-release made 60 million before they went back into a partial lockdown.

Regardless, it's heavily outperforming the original in every other market. So we'll see how good it's legs are.

You can really tell the folks apart on who has followed the B/O for years & who hasn't in this thread.

People fail to realize that 70% of it's profits will come overseas (China only accounted for 200 million in its original run). Similar to the first. It's hit that percentage already in its first weekend, 70/30. 2 billion is still in the cards all considering, how much further than that is the question.



Avatar 3 is already done filming. They filmed 2 & 3 simultaneously which I'm guessing is where that 2 billion threshold comes into play, as theres no logical way for the sequel alone needing 2 billion. 2x-3x it's production budget is the standard multiplier needed to turn a profit. So if both cost 350-450 million, it's quite obvious how Cameron factored in the costs of 2 billion.

They also shot parts of 4 already because they needed to film certain kid actors before they grew up.


Total weekend box office not just Way of the Water is estimated to come in at $85.5 million partially due to the weather. The trek to $3 billion is looking tenuous at best. Here's hoping Cameron's next film will be a titanic sequel!
 
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octiny

Banned

Total weekend box office not just Way of the Water is estimated to come in at $85.5 million partially due to the weather. The trek to $3 billion is looking tenuous at best. Here's hoping Cameron's next film will be a titanic sequel!

Heavily underestimated mainly due to Xmas falling on a Sunday. Not sure why you quoted this post when my next one goes further in depth. Absolutely been spot on WW so far. Wouldn't be surprised to see it make 75 million alone Sunday & Monday, domestic.

It never had a chance at 3 billion due to Covid issues in China. 2 billion without a doubt is still in play.

Come back once we get results Tuesday morning 👍

Edit: Also like to add that it's the only moive which didnt decrease on Thursday in the top 10, and also had the largest % increase on Friday. Legs (especially WW) already showing which is a good thing heading into January. Nonetheless, it's going to be pretty brutal today for all movies going by Rogue drops.
 
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FunkMiller

Gold Member
Sort of bomba? I have to see it. I do plan on it.

It’ll probably be around Top Gun at 1.4 billion. That’s about where it’s tracking, as it’s performing much like most blockbusters.

Its fucking idiotic that’ll be seen as a disappointment.
 
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Days like these...

Have a Blessed Day
Heavily underestimated mainly due to Xmas falling on a Sunday. Not sure why you quoted this post when my next one goes further in depth. Absolutely been spot on WW so far. Wouldn't be surprised to see it make 75 million alone Sunday & Monday, domestic.

It never had a chance at 3 billion due to Covid issues in China. 2 billion without a doubt is still in play.

Come back once we get results Tuesday morning 👍

Edit: Also like to add that it's the only moive which didnt decrease on Thursday in the top 10, and also had the largest % increase on Friday. Legs (especially WW) already showing which is a good thing heading into January. Nonetheless, it's going to be pretty brutal today for all movies going by Rogue drops.
I quoted it because you said it should make $130 million over Christmas weekend and it's not going to be anywhere near that.
 

Ulysses 31

Gold Member

bitbydeath

Gold Member
It’ll probably be around Top Gun at 1.4 billion. That’s about where it’s tracking, as it’s performing much like most blockbusters.

Its fucking idiotic that’ll be seen as a disappointment.
Apparently they started filming when one of the kids was 13, they’re now 18. Long dev time makes for an awful budget.
 
3D is just a gimmick. Seen it in both.

2D looks way superior.

3D just adds a minuscule amount of depth for the loss of clarity in some floaty foreground bits.

Sure it looks kind of cool but overall it ain't worth it one bit.
 

Ulysses 31

Gold Member
3D is just a gimmick. Seen it in both.

2D looks way superior.

3D just adds a minuscule amount of depth for the loss of clarity in some floaty foreground bits.

Sure it looks kind of cool but overall it ain't worth it one bit.
Did the 3D also suffer a bit from muted colors or is that fixed in todays cinemas?
 
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