Eric Quinn

Saw this for the first time (and a bunch of the other movies Avatar ripped off) a few days ago. Do...do people still think this is actually good? Because I thought this wasn't it. Kevin Costner narrating like he's an eighth grader reading a boring book in English class was insufferable.

Place your bets, party people.

I also created a poll at the top for everybody to vote on. Just for curiosity's sake, how old were you when Avatar (2009) first came out? Thank you to the lovely and beautiful @Plain Old Tele for this wonderful suggestion.

It's done. The weekend thread is now open. Eywa help us all...

THIS FAMILY IS OUR FORTRESS Looking back, 2009 was one of the most incredible, iconic, life-defining years. A year that, at least within pop culture, you just never forget. In 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as America’s first Black President, representing a bright new America that sadly never came to be. In 2009, Michael Jackson passed on, shocking many, as the whole world grieved his loss. In 2009, Grindr was launched, with gay-centric programs like Rupaul’s Drag Race, Glee and Modern Family also hitting television, representing a new, less homophobic future that also sadly never came to be. In 2009, Minecraft launched for the first time, redefining video games forever. There was also some bad stuff of course, with the H1N1 virus, the devastating earthquakes in Italy and Indonesia, and the atrocity that was “Boom Boom Pow”. But 2009 really was a sensational year for pop culture junkies that has little else you can compare it with. Movies were of course also a huge part of 2009’s iconicness. Up, Inglorious Basterds, Aliens in the Attic. But out of all the movies that came out in 2009, the most exciting one of them all was at the very, very end of the year. The movie Avatar may not seem like much to you younger BOT folks, but for those of us who have lived that year, Avatar was a big, big deal. A sci-fi action epic 15 years in the making, Avatar was James Cameron’s epic return to cinemas after making oodles of money off of Titanic, and was a film unlike any other. Tackling the evils of imperialism, the importance of conservation, and pushing anti-American rhetoric via surreal, colorful visuals and offbeat alien creatures, Avatar was simply mesmerizing in 2009. The world of Pandora was so vibrant and dense that it felt like a real culture unfolding before our eyes, with so many surprises and nuances that made it feel as if we really were stepping into a culture that has been around for centuries. By all accounts, for young 2009 viewers, this was the equivalent of seeing Star Wars for the very first time. Outside of that, the film boasted technological breakthroughs in motion capture, computer animation, and digital 3D technology, giving the film a unique sense of realism that was never possible even just a few years ago, testing the limits of visual effects and computer wizardry. Again, this was just like Star Wars way back in 1977. Taking everything that the director loved as a kid and compiling it with groundbreaking designs and special effects that audiences frankly never saw before. This was a game changer, and you had to be in the conversation. And...boy did people want to be in the conversation. Avatar didn’t just merely become the biggest movie of all time. Rather, it blew Cameron’s last movie Titanic out of the water. In just 2009 alone, the movie earned nearly $3 billion, even excluding the many re-releases. And unlike every other movie near it, which relied on a popular brand or nostalgia or a previous movie to get where it was, Avatar did it solely on being what the movies are all about. An incredible, immersive experience, where you are transported to a world that allows your imagination to go wild. And with innovative 3D technology and a passionately human story, despite all the aliens, Avatar is a film that the public adored and didn’t even know that they wanted in the first place. Again...just like Star Wars. The future was bright for Daddy Cameron, as he wanted to do so much more with the world of Pandora. I mean, with a universe and characters so rich and engrossing as this, it was impossible not to make more and play around with this world. So in 2010, Daddy Cameron stated two sequels were on the way, just like Star Wars, and the world was on the edge of their seat waiting...and waiting...and waiting. A lot has changed from 2009 to 2022. And the movies were no exception. Between then, this generation’s Star Wars turned out to be the Marvel Cinematic Universe, an expanding franchise that has become so massive it has moved from the movie screen to your TV screen. Meanwhile, Star Wars itself returned to the big screen to mixed success, Jurassic Park was rebranded into a whole world, DC Comics created its own shared universe like three times, and the Minions have dominated the realm of children’s entertainment. Netflix killed the midbudget movie, Harvey Weinstein is gone, A24 birthed Film Twitter, a whole pandemic killed movie theaters for a while, and most shocking of all, an entire movie studio, the one that specifically made Avatar, was swallowed up by The Walt Disney Company. But in that 13-year period, the craziest thing of all was how conspicuously absent the biggest movie of all time was. Avatar never went away of course, but those two sequels were strangely absent through the entirety of the 2010s. Daddy Cameron kept hyping these sequels up, even moving from two all the way to four, and we would later get an entire section of Walt Disney World dedicated to Avatar. But for years these films lingered in development hell with no word on when they would ever come out. The Avatar sequels got delayed again and again, Daddy Cameron vanished from the world, and Avatar went from the biggest, most incredible thing ever to a total joke amongst filmbros and Internet funnymen. Of course, Daddy Cameron is a perfectionist. And while everybody mocked his silly Avatar sequels that would never ever get made, the man looks to return to the silver screen with a bang. The Way of Water finally unveiled its first footage to millions by playing in front of Doctor Strange 2 and shocked and awed everybody. Pandora looked more stunning than ever. There was more exciting Na’Vi stuff in store. We’re getting a whole new underwater world, a pretty interesting trend within blockbusters lately. It looked like everything that was amazing about 2009’s Avatar, but just a little bit more special. And with the first film’s big return to theaters and plenty of exciting ads and promos in the months since, everybody’s aware about this new film coming out and that it's another banger from the king. But will it become the same phenomenon as before? Are people excited to go back to Pandora? Hard to know for certain, but let’s go on ahead and have fun for the time being. But remember that before you have fun, you gotta read the boring rules first. So... 1. ABSOLUTELY NO SPOILERS. NOT EVEN SPOILERS POSTED UNDER SPOILER TAGS. This rule also applies to other movies in theaters and films/shows recently released on streaming. So no Violent Night spoilers, no Wednesday spoilers, no The Santa Clauses spoilers, etc. If you do spoil something here, you will be banned. No exceptions. We do have a spoiler thread for Avatar: The Way of Water right here for you to go nuts in. 2. GOOD VIBES! Big weekends like these are supposed to be fun. So don’t be a party pooper and ruin things for everybody. No matter what the film opens to, it's still gonna make bank, the Christmas season can change things on a dime, and we still have plenty of Avatar goodness along the way. No need to predict the end times and so on and so forth. Just relax and have fun. 3. THE REPORT AND IGNORE BUTTONS ARE YOUR FRIENDS. 4. IS OFF-TOPIC DISCUSSION OKAY? Off-topic discussions are okay in situations where there's downtime and there aren't any numbers, so long as they don’t get heated. But when numbers are coming up and things are getting busy, then keep off-topic things down to the minimum. And lastly... 5. DON'T BE A DICK. So with that out of the way, and I never thought I would say this about Daddy Cameron's franchise opus... WITHOUT FURTHER ADO LET'S DO THIS SHIT

Movie Title Distributor Gross %YD %LW Theaters Per Theater Total Gross Days In Release 1 (1) Black Panther: Wakanda Fo… Walt Disney $1,144,342 +27% -27% 3,725 $307 $411,993,275 33 2 (2) Violent Night Universal $1,064,795 +38% -29% 3,723 $286 $28,554,290 12 3 (3) The Menu Searchlight … $420,523 +27% -20% 2,710 $155 $29,846,092 26 4 (5) Devotion Sony Pictures $300,361 +57% -31% 3,458 $87 $17,492,004 21 5 (4) Strange World Walt Disney $279,547 +36% -25% 3,560 $79 $31,120,734 21 6 (6) The Fabelmans Universal $203,420 +44% -1% 973 $209 $7,667,036 33 7 (7) I Heard the Bells Fathom Events $202,833 +45% +19% 1,135 $179 $4,435,474 13 - (-) Black Adam Warner Bros. $121,716 +29% -13% 2,143 $57 $167,077,750 54 - (-) Bones and All United Artists $106,124 +12% -45% 1,707 $62 $7,487,675 26 - (-) Spoiler Alert Focus Features $89,240 +37% +1,439% 783 $114 $936,528 12 - (-) Ticket to Paradise Universal $80,170 +46% -38% 1,394 $58 $67,671,285 54 - (-) Top Gun: Maverick Paramount Pi… $61,443 +23% -32% 1,223 $50 $718,637,946 201 - (-) Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile Sony Pictures $40,379 +29% +15% 933 $43 $46,252,065 68 - (-) The Banshees of Inisherin Searchlight … $37,090 +27% +4% 270 $137 $8,633,902 54 - (-) The Mean One Atlas Distri… $27,800 +20% 162 $172 $301,050 6 - (-) Father Stu: Reborn Sony Pictures $27,114 +62% 993 $27 $21,063,766 245 - (-) She Said Universal $25,990 +33% -60% 478 $54 $5,738,390 26 - (-) Empire of Light Searchlight … $23,298 +26% 110 $212 $205,161 5 - (-) Prey for the Devil Lionsgate $14,912 +5% -15% 286 $52 $19,662,598 47 - (-) TÁR Focus Features $11,570 +18% -20% 80 $145 $5,394,073 68 - (-) Smile Paramount Pi… $9,649 -10% -23% 278 $35 $105,918,127 75 - (-) Till United Artists $9,416 +22% -6% 97 $97 $8,985,981 61 - (-) 2nd Chance Bleecker Street $1,389 +36% +116% 51 $27 $17,119 12 23 $4,303,121

Hoping to get the final three tomorrow or Friday. You probably know what the top 3 are in some capacity, but feel free to predict what goes where. The winner gets my love and affection as a prize

#4 O Brother, Where Art Thou? 177 points, X lists "Damn! We're in a tight spot!" #1 placements: 2 #2 placements: 2 #3 placements: 4 Top 5 placements: 12 Box Office: $45.5M DOM, $71.9M WW Rotten Tomatoes: 78% Metacritic: 69 Awards: 2 Academy Award nominations, 3 BAFTA Award nominations, 1 Golden Globe Award and 1 nomination, 2 Grammy Award wins, 2 MTV Movie Award nominations Roger Ebert’s Review: "All of these scenes are wonderful in their different ways, and yet I left the movie uncertain and unsatisfied. I saw it a second time, admired the same parts, left with the same feeling. I do not demand that all movies have a story to pull us from beginning to end, and indeed one of the charms of "The Big Lebowski," the Coens' previous film, is how its stoned hero loses track of the thread of his own life. But with "O Brother, Where Are Thou?" I had the sense of invention set adrift; of a series of bright ideas wondering why they had all been invited to the same film." Its Legacy: Competed for Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Its soundtrack went 8x Platinum. More successful than the film itself. Created the Soggy Bottom Boys and the Down from the Mountain concert tour. Gave the youths a fresh spin on Homer's The Odyssey. The first collaboration between the Coens and T Bone Burnett. Also the first collaboration between the Coens and George Clooney. Gave Charles Durning a paycheck. Commentary: Have you ever found yourself reading Homer’s The Odyssey and asked yourself, “what if it took place in the South and had folk music”? Well Joel and Ethan have your back. Much has been said about this film’s Grammy-winning soundtrack, which took America by storm in 2001 with 8.2 million copies sold. T Bone Burnett and his team created something that was authentic to the music of that time, but still feels fresh, with modern recordings of classic tunes that permeate all through the film and give it a memorable charm and identity. But you also add in a very strong story about three men running from the law and fantastic cinematography that recreates a sepia-toned look common at the time, courtesy of the legendary Roger Deakins, and it’s no wonder why this film was such a success and why those Soggy Bottom Boys are still endearing and charming to audiences even today. A true classic whether you’re a country boy or not.

#5 True Grit 171 points, 26 lists "You must pay for everything in this world, one way or another. There is nothing free except the grace of God." #1 placements: 2 #3 placements: 2 Top 5 placements: 10 Box Office: $171.2M DOM, $252.3M WW Rotten Tomatoes: 95% Metacritic: 80 Awards: 10 Academy Award nominations, Roger Ebert’s Review: "What strikes me is that I'm describing the story and the film as if it were simply, if admirably, a good Western. That's a surprise to me, because this is a film by the Coen Brothers, and this is the first straight genre exercise in their career. It's a loving one. Their craftsmanship is a wonder. Their casting is always inspired and exact. The cinematography by Roger Deakins reminds us of the glory that was, and can still be, the Western." Its Legacy: The highest-grossing Coen Brothers movie of all time. One of the highest-grossing Westerns ever. The epic debut of Hailee Steinfeld (paging @WrathOfHan). Became the definitive interpretation of the 1968 novel. Forced Jeff Bridges to do the same voice for a decade plus. Gave Barry Pepper a paycheck. Commentary: Adapting a popular book is hard. Adapting one of the great American novels is harder. But picture adapting one of the great American novels when it already has an amazing film adaptation already. 1969 saw True Grit, based on the 1968 book. And this John Wayne starrer was already canonized as an instant classic, noted for its strong story, great box office, and for giving John Wayne his only Academy Award. So having to make a new True Grit under the shadow of an already revered classic was tough. So did Joel and Ethan succeed? Well, not only did it too earn Oscar gold (well not actual Oscar gold but a bunch of nominations. You know what I mean), but their take is oft-considered superior and the definitive interpretation of Charles Portis’ novel. This is the film people now think of when they hear the title “True Grit”. And who can blame them really? It’s a well-crafted, well-acted, engaging Western drama with high stakes and surprisingly restrained direction. The eccentricities found in the Coens’ other works isn’t really here all that much. It’s a very traditional, yet very profound take on the source material that still allows for great drama and incredible sequences. At least until we get to the ending. Following the original novel, the final few minutes are vague, confusing, and full of complex emotions, a contrast to the classic Hollywood ending of the 1969 film. And it’s this ending that ties everything together and still shows this is a Coens film in its blood and DNA. This is the highest-grossing film the brothers have ever made and will likely stay that way barring them directing a Transformers movie or something. And it’s good to know one of their best has that distinction and hopefully introduced the many youngsters who first saw it in 2010 to dozens more iconic and memorable films.

OMG GUYS As it turns out, Joel Coen didn't write Garfield: The Movie. It was written by a guy named Joel Cohen. How could I miss such an obvious detail? Guess I have to find a brand-new #5.

https://deadline.com/video/warner-bros-100th-anniversary-concert-looney-tunes-documentary-morgan-freeman/ I know it's fun to dunk on WB, but I am for all this stuff lol The 100th anniversary website is also up, but bare-bones: https://www.wb100.com/

Quorum Updates Puss in Boots T-7: 57.19% Awareness, 6.02 Interest Cocaine Bear T-72: 26.56%, 5.44 Mummies T-72: 22.12%, 5.01 65 T-121: 7.07%, 5.39 Book Club 2: The Next Chapter T-149: 12.39%, 4.47 The Little Mermaid T-163: 55.61%, 6.18 Dune: Part Two T-324: 27.2%, 5.02 Avatar: The Way of Water T-2: 72.32% Awareness, 6.47 Interest Final Awareness: 100% chance of 100M Final Interest: 47% chance of 100M Tentpole Awareness: 100% chance of 100M Tentpole Interest: 67% chance of 100M Babylon T-9: 28.83% Awareness, 5.09 Interest Final Awareness: 7% chance of 10M Final Interest: 43% chance of 10M Original - High Awareness: 0% chance of 10M Original - High Interest: 25% chance of 10M House Party T-30: 30.16% Awareness, 5.51 Interest T-30 Awareness: 93% chance of 10M, 57% chance of 20M T-30 Interest: 78% chance of 10M, 67% chance of 20M Known IP Awareness: 100% chance of 10M, 75% chance of 20M Known IP Interest: 100% chance of 10M and 20M

Daddy Cameron has failed us.

M3GAN Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-23 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 33 21 5433 0.39% Total Seats Sold Today: 3 Comp 0.105x of Scream T-23 (367K) 0.096x of Nope T-23 (614K)

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Greater Philadelphia Area Seat Report T-8 and Counting Sellouts Showings Seats Sold Total Seats Perct Sold TOTALS 0 113 523 16775 3.12% Total Seats Sold Today: 7 Total Seats WITHOUT Early Access: 56 Comp w/ Early Access 0.277x of Sing 2 T-8 (2.7M) 0.720x of Sonic 2 T-8 (4.5M) 2.004x of Lightyear T-8 (10.42M) 2.067x of Minions 2 T-8 (22.22M) 9.685x of Super Pets T-8 (21.31M) Comp w/out Early Access 0.117x of Sing 2 T-8 (955K) 0.077x of Sonic 2 T-8 (482K) 0.215x of Lightyear T-8 (1.12M) 0.221x of Minions 2 T-8 (2.38M) 1.037x of Super Pets T-8 (2.28M)