BadAtGender

Looking back at past non-Avatar/Titanic blockbusters in December, they tend to hit their halfway point around day 10. If TFA does that, it'll finish in the 1-1.1b range.

What's it sitting at, ticket-wise? 55m or so? If so it needs to more than double its current gross to be in the same conversation as Titanic. And that's fine. TFA's run is astoundingly strong. Whether it ends up as the most impressive run in history or not won't change that.

The actual is going to be $18,290,627

In the Line of Fire?

1) A sequel has never been the highest grossing film of all time, so it's under a very different consideration than those films. 2) The films the Academy tends to go for have changed quite a bit in that time. 3) All of those films were very much the vision of the filmmakers who made them. Cameron, Spielberg, and Lucas all had a strong guiding hand that was clear throughout the entire process. TFA may be a JJ Abrams joint, but it's got a hell of a lot more chefs in the kitchen, and that's abundantly clear. Way back when, the big blockbusters could very often be the result of director vision. That's become pretty rare, nowadays. Hence the reason you see most nominated films coming lower on the box office scale. It doesn't help that Abrams style is pretty much cribbing likes of Lucas and Spielberg, as well. So even if you go for what he does, it's not like he's bringing something new to the table.

IIRC, the reasons for making sure a film gets to 100 or 200m are considerably more important than for getting to any other threshold. Something to do with payments on ancillary markets such as TV.

It's got a long way to go before it's more impressive than Titanic.

No, I got what you were talking about. I'm saying that none of the things you said out make any sense. "Entertainment vs. Fun"? "Science vs. Fiction"? What the actual fuck?

What the fuck? None of these comparisons make sense. The Yankees are a baseball team from New York. Their 1998 team is in the argument for best in the history of the sport. They won 114 games and then went on to win the World Series. (The 2001 Mariners had more regular season wins, but lost to the Yankees in the ALCS and thus didn't get to the Series.) I -hate- the Yankees with a passion, but I have to acknowledge that their run in the late 90s was absolutely fantastic. The Pittsburg Steelers are an American Football team. The Steelers have won a record 6 Super Bowls, AFAIK. (I care about Football considerably less than baseball, so there are more gaps in my knowledge.) Do you see why you can't compare the two? They are totally different sports and really beyond saying that it involves two teams, a ball, and are generally played in North America, there isn't a whole lot that you can draw up for any meaningful conclusions. At this point, Avatar is not a franchise. It is one film. Star Wars is a franchise. It covers multiple media and several decades. It has many movies and a lot of ups and downs with regards to financial success and reception over time. Drawing up Star Wars vs. Avatar is ludicrous in any attempt to have meaningful discussion. It's just like bringing up Marvel vs. DC. Sure, you can cheerlead your favorite of the two, but you aren't going to be saying anything intelligent while doing so. People who pick sides while discussing movies are generally doing themselves and the discussion a disservice.

Ugh. It's not a sport. It's not at all like a sport. And most of the attempts at comparison do not make sense. Avatar vs. Star Wars is like the 1998 Yankees being compared to the entire history of the Pittsburg Steelers. There are tons of places on the internet where you can just go with your franchise fanwank. Unfortunately, that's also common here on this forum. I mostly stay here because some posters really do go for insightful analysis of the numbers. @spizzer @redfirebird2008 @Murgatroyd @peludo and the like are all bringing really intelligent points to the discussion that allows us to do much better comparisons than "My favorite beat your favorite."

Way to sell the movie, Tele.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a fan of any franchise. I just like some individual films. Occasionally they're linked to other films I like.

It's like you didn't even read what I wrote.

That's kinda a really slim comparison. Like, what is the history of "highest grossing film in the world"? Something like this? Avatar: 2010-present Titanic - 1998-2010 Jurassic Park - 1993-1998 ??? (I actually have no idea what it was before JP. ET?) If your data set is limited to "things that were at some point #1" then you're going to have far too few items for meaningful comparison. The point being, the biggest movie of all time (DOM or WW, actually) has probably never been a sequel to anything. However, sequels to previous record-holding films have increased. Star Wars was eclipsed by all three prequels WW, and TPM DOM. (TFA has beaten it both ways, as well.) JW increased both DOM and WW over JP. Of course, what the fuck does it matter whether a specific film is later outgrossed by another film. That doesn't suddenly make the first film's performance meaningless. You're way too fixated on the position of Cameron's films rather than how they actually did. Titanic's run was amazing! Perhaps the most impressive ever in the history of movies. So what if JW, Avengers, Avatar, and TFA have all since grossed more? It was still an awe-inspiring run. Avatar's box office run was fantastic. Just jaw-dropping, especially at the time. I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise. You seem to be so invested in this one film that you're taking logical counter-arguments as a personal criticism, and they're really not. If you want to argue that Avatar 2 is going to increase over the first, fine, but math it out. Do honest breakdowns of how that's going to be the case. Similarly, if you're saying that it will beat TFA, you need to accept how big TFA's actual run is, and not what you want it to be. It's not just you, Kal. Too many people on the forum are focused on whether a film beats another film at the box office that they lose sight about the runs themselves. It's like only that final number matters, and everything else that came before is to be ignored. That's sad. There are stories to be found when you open things up. So many amazing runs that may not have broken records, but still provide some fun analysis. For the films that hold on week after week and turn out to be far more solid than we'd assumed to the ones which opened big and crashed and burned to the ones that, yes, had unprecedented, historic box office grosses. Accept it all. Don't get wound up in the predictions. They're fun, but in the end they don't matter. Sometimes people are right. Sometimes they're wrong. Don't let either become your whole story.

It's early, especially for the late summer/Holiday releases which have largely not been marketed. For instance, the only films in July that have teasers are Secret Life of Pets (which I'm betting a bit high on based on Illumination's track record) and Star Trek Beyond (which I think will do better than many people assume, but not in the top 10 range). The only films after July are Suicide Squad (which was arguably a mistake. They probably didn't want to have any marketing out for it before BvS' release), Kubo and the Two Strings (IIRC, The Boxtrolls had a similarly early teaser), and Fantastic Beasts (which is a major tentpole, so an early teaser makes sense.) Heck, I don't think there are any films after BvS that have even gotten their second trailers, yet. Everything from April on is in teaser territory. (Although several of them are pretty full teasers. Disney seems to only have true teasers for animated material nowadays.) So trying to predict the year is dealing with imperfect information. I'm going high on a few of them just on some gut impressions, really. Zootopia's the one I probably feel most confident betting that high. The response to the marketing, and the really smart choice to put it with Star Wars, has increased its positive exposure tremendously. (But you're right that it probably would be ridiculous. If you dropped everything on the list by about 50m, it's probably more realistic.)

I lived in SF for four years. I am familiar with the weather there: It's like Seattle except the summers suck.

You've grown weak in your old age. That's what you're saying.

Aren't you from SF? Mid-50s and drizzle is like 11 months of the year there. (October is nicer.)

I don't expect it to be upper tier (things like Star Wars, Batman, Avengers, or Frozen) for tie-in sales, but it could be solid.

It'll be interesting to see how that changes when the new movies come out

1. Finding Dory ~550m 2. Independence Day: Resurgence ~500m 3. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ~460m 4. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ~440m 5. Captain America: Civil War ~400m 6. Zootopia ~340m 7. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ~320m 8. The Secret Life of Pets ~300m 9. Moana ~300m 10. Ghostbusters ~280m

I'd give SW8 a pretty good chance to break the record. And Excel's 225m predict for BvS could happen. Though... Not a record.

I'm particularly amused about this: Baumer: Don't engage with Kal. He's crazy. Baumer: *spends the next three pages engaging with Kal*

While I think Kal should be a shoe-in to win Funniest Poster at the BOFFY's (sorry @CoolioD1 and @Chewy) I find a lot of the arguments against him to be equally crazy. The fixation people have on brand recognition as all important is pretty short-sighted.

Pretty tight spread at the top, and I'm falling behind.