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Rottenwatch: AVATAR (82%)

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GhaleonEB said:
Well, less than a month ago the movie had just come out. So I think I'll forgive you this one point.

FWIW, if we assume ~$8m for Wed/Thurs, and then 25% weekly drops from there (which is conservative since it's exhibinting ~20% drops), Avatar hits $716m.

I'm with you in thinking between $650m and $700m is likely, but over $700m is certainly possible.

Ma'god. 0_0
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I still maintain that my predictions would have worked just fine if Avatar were having remotely normal drops rather than flirting with a 9x multiplier off a $77 million opening weekend. Hell, even Jurassic Park only got a 7.6 and that was back in '93. By the time you get to the point where legs like this are the standard you're in the '80s and movies pretty much don't open this big, even adjusting for ticket price inflation and so on. At $700m it would probably end up somewhere around The Lion King in terms of tickets sold (which I know you all think is an irrelevant statistic but being the 24th-most attended movie of all time and the most-attended of the decade is pretty significant considering the history of cinema). For it to break into the top twenty for tickets sold it would have to do something stupid like $760 million, so hopefully people will be satisfied with that, especially since from the studio's perspective at $700 million it's more successful than Return of the Jedi. I guess my point is that it's going to end up as one of the most successful movies of all time, by any measure, and no one can really predict this kind of run. And, of course, overseas it's even better.
 
So I took my girlfriend to go see Avatar in 3D this past weekend. It was my second viewing and the experience was pretty similar to the first nearing the final thirty minutes or so. At about this point, I think I hear a loud groaning sound, but can't quite place where it's coming from in the scene. After a few seconds of confusion, I realize that I do not remember this as part of the movie and start scanning around the theater itself.

I notice a really large dude near the front row is partially standing up and leaning over into the aisle, violently puking. This guy continues to empty his guts for the good part of a couple minutes, with absolutely no attempt to muffle the sound or leave the theater. I'm not sure if this had to do with 3D/motion sickness or something else, but I still can't figure out why he didn't try to, you know, get out of there preemptively if his stomach wasn't having it.

Eventually, some people stood up and went over to make sure the guy didn't keel over and die, but most of the crowd was either stifling laughter or gasping in disgusted horror. He ended up slowly shuffling out, but the smell did not leave with him.

But yeah, fun movie.
 
Sharp said:
I still maintain that my predictions would have worked just fine if Avatar were having remotely normal drops rather than flirting with a 9x multiplier off a $77 million opening weekend. Hell, even Jurassic Park only got a 7.6 and that was back in '93. By the time you get to the point where legs like this are the standard you're in the '80s and movies pretty much don't open this big, even adjusting for ticket price inflation and so on. At $700m it would probably end up somewhere around The Lion King in terms of tickets sold (which I know you all think is an irrelevant statistic but being the 24th-most attended movie of all time and the most-attended of the decade is pretty significant considering the history of cinema). For it to break into the top twenty for tickets sold it would have to do something stupid like $760 million, so hopefully people will be satisfied with that, especially since from the studio's perspective at $700 million it's more successful than Return of the Jedi. I guess my point is that it's going to end up as one of the most successful movies of all time, by any measure, and no one can really predict this kind of run. And, of course, overseas it's even better.
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To be clear, I don't think it's an irrelevant statistic at all. I think it's quite relevant when used for that purpose, and in the context of a changing market. It's adjusting the dollars that irks me. I agree all around with your points.

From the Rolling Stone Cameron article:

"If you ever go to a 25th high school reunion," he recently said, "make sure that in the previous two months you've made the world's highest-grossing movie, won 11 Academy Awards and become physically bigger than most of those guys who used to beat you up. I walked up to them one by one and said, 'You know, I could take your ass right now, and I'm tempted, but I won't.'"
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:lol
 
Folks are saying Avatar is pulled in China now? Something about giving ideas to the chinese people to over thrown their government? :lol
 
madara said:
Folks are saying Avatar is pulled in China now? Something about giving ideas to the chinese people to over thrown their government? :lol
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All 2D prints are pulled, but 3D is staying. It will hurt a little on it's overseas numbers, but the 3D screens accounted for a large majority of the Chinese take so it's just a small bump in the road.

They've mentioned how the film is relating to the Chinese public, but they always pull American movies early. Plus I'm sure the Chinese group isn't happy it's making so much more than Chinese made films.
 
madara said:
Folks are saying Avatar is pulled in China now? Something about giving ideas to the chinese people to over thrown their government? :lol
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I believe it's 2D version only.
The reasons I've heard are:
a) humans driving Na'vi from their home tree as a parallel to resettlement chinese government done when they built that huge useless dam to show off
b) some upcoming biopic about Confucius, apperently they didn't want some american movie to beat it at box office
 
Reading the Rolling Stone article.
I just really love Cameron's Far Out Mad Scientist persona.

Are there any documentaries about him?

Also, I really enjoy the flow of this article, it's so fast paced.
Is Rolling Stone usually like this? Or is it just the particular writer.
 
GhaleonEB said:
Domestic: $509,059,398
+ Foreign: $1,153,370,200

= Worldwide: $1,662,429,598

Tuesday Domestic: 4,190,947 (-17% last week)
Tuesday International: 20,976,442 (flat to last week)
Tuesday Total: 25,167,389

Distance to Titanic, Domestic: 91,728,790
Distance to Titanic, International: 88,721,567
Distance to Titanic, World-wide: 180,450,357

Will pass Titanic international and overall this weekend. Domestic, another week or so.
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A week or so?

That's a little ambitious...unless "or so" is 2-3 weeks total.
 
A week from today will be a month since I saw it my third and "final" time. I think though that I will get out to see it once more within the next 2-3 weeks before it vanishes from theatres for good.
 
ryutaro's mama said:
A week or so?

That's a little ambitious...unless "or so" is 2-3 weeks total.
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That was inartfully worded. It could happen as soon as two more weekends, or 10-12 days (a week and change). Amended.

If it drops 25% per week, it clears Titanic in about two weeks exactly. And it's dropping less than 20% week over week right now.
 
This will probably be either the best or worst place for this, not sure: I'm not interested in seeing this at all except for the fact that everyone else has seen it and I need to weigh in myself.

My issue is I can't stand blockbusters anymore and would rather watch a movie with a great script with great actors with a single camera in one room rather than the $300 million budget effects laden movie.

Should I even bother? Is the writing/acting/story something different or is it just the 3-D and visuals that carry it?

I saw the little 10 minute preview thing in theaters when that came around and although I was impressed by the visuals, but overall I walked out "eh". Is the movie just that 10 minute preview x 16?
 
Smidget said:
This will probably be either the best or worst place for this, not sure: I'm not interested in seeing this at all except for the fact that everyone else has seen it and I need to weigh in myself.

My issue is I can't stand blockbusters anymore and would rather watch a movie with a great script with great actors with a single camera in one room rather than the $300 million budget effects laden movie.

Should I even bother? Is the writing/acting/story something different or is it just the 3-D and visuals that carry it?

I saw the little 10 minute preview thing in theaters when that came around and although I was impressed by the visuals, but overall I walked out "eh". Is the movie just that 10 minute preview x 16?
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The movie is great, period. One of the best blockbuster spectacles since god knows when. It is what it is.
 
Smidget said:
My issue is I can't stand blockbusters anymore and would rather watch a movie with a great script with great actors with a single camera in one room rather than the $300 million budget effects laden movie.
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Avatar is not that movie.
 
>>>> New (?) 'Creating the World of Pandora' video (over 22minuets)


avatarsculpture-1-large-sfmovies103.jpg



avatarsculpture-2-large-sfmovies103.jpg
 
koam said:
Did no one catch the Cameron interview on Leno just now?
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Awww I missed it =( I hope it gets put up on NBC soon!

AlternativeUlster said:
So what are the percentage of people in this thread that really disliked the film? I am interested. I just watched it finally tonight.
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I don't know the %, but at least in this thread it's mainly people who enjoyed/loved the film anymore with a few people popping in saying what they think. What did you think of it?
 
Somnia said:
Awww I missed it =( I hope it gets put up on NBC soon!
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I figured it wouldn't be on youtube, but I checked anyways and nope, it's not. Did find a rather hilarious Access Hollywood interview right after the Globes through. The Downey Jr. anecdote was hilarious.

And Weaver's look when they start talking about the sequel....:lol
 
Count Dookkake said:
Yeah, you should watch the movies and get back to me.
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You know, I've had both of them languishing at the bottom of my Netflix queue for a while now, but this post reminded me to bump the up to the top.

Which led to me clicking on the Ebert review Netflix linked to for Ghosts of the Abyss, which is classic Ebert: he spends the first half of the review praising the movie, and literally the entire second half trashing 3D. Rather fitting that it was Cameron's Avatar that made Ebert a believer in 3D after all these years.
 
I ain't reading all these pages, but damnit if it wasn't for Neytiri I would have hated on the film for being predictable, without character development, etc.

My leaking eyeballs and the few boners in my lap that I had to cover with my jacket all revolved around her. Her look, sound, movements were perfect and drew me into the screen.
 
If you ever go to a 25th high school reunion," he recently said, "make sure that in the previous two months you've made the world's highest-grossing movie, won 11 Academy Awards and become physically bigger than most of those guys who used to beat you up. I walked up to them one by one and said, 'You know, I could take your ass right now, and I'm tempted, but I won't.'
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clap.gif
 
Saw the movie again tonight, this time in IMAX. Very good, and my g/f loved it too, mostly "for the forest parts." Heh.

I paid a lot of attention to the action sequences this time, and they really crap all over the shaky cam stuff that Hollywood's been churning out for the past few years. There are numerous cuts and camera movements, but you can always see what is going on, and everything still feels incredibly intense.

P.S. Still hate Michelle Rodriguez and her boring-and-cliche-as-shit dialogue and delivery.
 
Alucard said:
There are numerous cuts and camera movements, but you can always see what is going on, and everything still feels incredibly intense.
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THIS!

I kept wanting to post something but I couldn't remember what it was that I wanted to say and thats it!

I love how clear the action is! Movies like Transformers can, for a min, have me thinking that theres something wrong with ME for not being able to see wtf was happening in the fights before they do their lil slow-mo attacks. All the action in this is just so clear . . . I never felt confused about what was what or who was hitting who.
 
Yeah, for those scenes alone I would give Cameron a strong nod for the Best Director Oscar this year. I still don't think Avatar deserves a Best Picture award, but it certainly deserves accolades for its visual prowess. As far as action adventures go, it's quite grand, though long-winded near the end.

Anyway, this is one movie that I would recommend everyone see in the theatre. This is the type of film the big screen was made for.
 
Black-Wind said:
THIS!

I kept wanting to post something but I couldn't remember what it was that I wanted to say and thats it!

I love how clear the action is! Movies like Transformers can, for a min, have me thinking that theres something wrong with ME for not being able to see wtf was happening in the fights before they do their lil slow-mo attacks. All the action in this is just so clear . . . I never felt confused about what was what or who was hitting who.
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Easy-to-follow action is one of Cameron's trademarks and largely why I have long considered him the best action director alive. No matter how intense things get, you always know exactly what is going on.
 
ArachosiA 78 said:
Easy-to-follow action is one of Cameron's trademarks and largely why I have long considered him the best action director alive. No matter how intense things get, you always know exactly what is going on.
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It makes me wonder why people have such a hardon for the Bourne series, since I can't tell what's going on about 90% of the time.
 
More stuff from the director's roundtable:
We live in an era in which actors want offers, they don't want to come in and read.

Cameron: I won't do it.

Daniels: I don't like the auditioning process. I can sort of feel just in a conversation whether or not that person is or isn't the person that I want to work with.

Cameron: I've got to have them read. I've got to have them show me that character.

Did you have Brad Pitt read?

Tarantino: Yeah, no, I did, but . . .

Daniels: Brad Pitt read for you? That is genius.

Tarantino: No, I did. . . . Brad's a different story. Getting Bruce [Willis] in "Pulp Fiction" and getting him to read before I gave it to him -- that was something else. . . . I need to hear their voice say my dialogue. It's just that simple. . . . They don't need to show me the character per se. We can just muck around with the script, but I have to hear it.

Cameron: I've never done an audition shorter than two hours.

Reitman: Whoa! Really?

Cameron: I'll . . . read all the scenes. I don't care. . . . An audition for me is if you're not willing to put two hours into this process to decide if you're going to tank or not tank my couple-hundred-million-dollar project, then that's a non-starter conversation.

Tarantino: That is actually my favorite thing that's been said right now.

Daniels: When [my casting director] gives me these things on the computer, I push a button and out comes the audition. To me, that's the work right there. I don't need to have them re-audition for me. . . . I've seen the character.

Cameron: I use that to narrow it down from 400 or 300 to three or four or five that I'm interested in and I'll spend the time with them because if I'm going to spend years on a movie, why wouldn't I spend a few hours making the most important decision of the production?

Daniels: I have made a radical mistake and I won't say who, but I made a big mistake once.

By casting the wrong person?

Daniels: Correct. . . . And I was wondering whether I was the only one that had that experience here.

Cameron: I don't because I work with them for two hours at a time.

Reitman: There are people I've worked with that I'm not proud of the work experience I had with them and I would not work with a similar actor just because I think that the process isn't right and I get better work when the process is right.

Tarantino: I cast a couple actors once . . . I thought they were interesting enough at the time and I thought they passed the audition process. I thought they were the best but then I realized they were just not the level of actor that I need and require. My feeling is if you show up on my set, there's none of that b.s. where you learn your lines on the day. You need to know my dialogue as if it's the sixth week of your Broadway run and you already had a Boston tryout. You need to know it beyond it. And unless you're prepared to do that, you're not prepared to be on my movie.

Bigelow: It goes back to instinct . . . . I can kind of just see the person and we communicate well together, I think they perhaps will trust me, I will trust them implicitly and I know it's going to be a good situation.

Bored With Board Games

I think in some ways you are in a slightly insulated world from what's happening in Hollywood where big-name directors are making movies based on board games and sequels and franchises.

Reitman: I'm making Boggle. I should put that out there now.

Cameron: Battleship was taken.

Is the pressure of having a "pre-awareness" title increasingly encroaching on what you want to do as a filmmaker?

Cameron: I just think it's not a coincidence that the people who make those movies are not being honored. . . . The only reason we're sitting in this room is because everybody in here is doing distinctive, original stuff. Iconoclastic stuff, whatever it is, and not some stupid number six in a series.

Do studios care about distinction? Don't they just care about revenue?

Reitman: They need the money to make these movies. I respect the fact that they have a business and they need to make movies that people want to see. And look, I think if it weren't for the Boggles and Candy Lands and Battleships of the world, I might not have the financing to make my movies. I'm fortunate so far my movies have made money, but some of them aren't and they are trickier movies and definitely more difficult films to greenlight. The same respect I want the studio to give me, I have to give back to them and say, "Look, I know you need to make some money to keep this company running."

Daniels: Jason, you sound like a politician. Answer the question.

Reitman: No, that's my answer. I think it's necessary. I think that you need movies that are definitely going to make money.

Cameron: They don't have to do board games though. They should have a little pride.

Reitman: The studio system isn't based on pride, you know? . . . It is those companies that finance our films.

Cameron: I get that. But most of these companies are run by people who have been in the job less than five years. They have no sense of history. When I started 25 years ago, everybody was crying about VHS and how it was wrecking the movie business. There's always something wrecking the movie business every two or three years. The movie business has been wrecked since the '50s, since, you know, television came in. But it always seems to survive just fine and this is not an excuse for people to just constantly be whining about how the business is failing and we have to do all this commercial stuff in order to just pay the rent or pay the payments on our corporate jets.
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http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-directors21-2010jan21,0,2739999.story?page=4
 
elcapitan said:
It makes me wonder why people have such a hardon for the Bourne series, since I can't tell what's going on about 90% of the time.
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A lot of people confuse the illusion of excitement with real excitement. It's also a handy trick for inexperienced action directors to make a movie look good, because it's so easy to hide bad action choreography and inept shots.

Personally I feel that Quantum of Solace was the worst shaky cam movie of all. I sat too close to the screen and wasn't able to follow the action at all. Because of the big screen, the fast cutting and the bouncing camera movements my mind wasn't fast enough to interpret what my eyes were seeing. I couldn't follow any damn action scene. It didn't help that the movie was a let down after the excellent Casino Royal.
 
Smidget said:
watch a movie with a great script with great actors with a single camera in one room rather than the $300 million budget effects laden movie.
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After Last Season is the movie you're looking for, not Avatar.

GhaleonEB said:
Will pass Titanic international and overall this weekend. Domestic, another two weekends or so.
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Overall I'd agree, but I somehow doubt it will pass it domestically by the end of this weekend. But the next week, for sure.
 
I've decided to see the movie a 3rd time in Japan (6th total), this time on a Liemax. :lol I'm curious to see what the difference between true IMAX and Liemax is.

Gotta figure out a date, but I'll try to get around to it.

I also tried pre-booking a spot in the London IMAX (wherever that is) for the end of February, but wow are seats filling up like no tomorrow.
 
elcapitan said:
It makes me wonder why people have such a hardon for the Bourne series, since I can't tell what's going on about 90% of the time.
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The Bourne series' problem lies in the editing room. I can handle the shakey/handheld stuff, but somewhere along the line Greengrass and Co. decided it would be best to hold action shots for an average length of about 0.2 seconds. They were wrong.
 
Karma Kramer said:
I think thats the intention, to be confused slightly because Bourne is so god damn fast.
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That may be a reasonable explanation for the hand to hand combat scenes, but all the action is cut like that, be it fistfights, car chases, foot chases, you name it.
 
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