NCsoft

Pretty much this; what I was getting from her across a couple of interviews: A2 is as much of a transformative experience as Avatar, and if you do connect with it, A3 will be even more rewarding.

Definitely not referring to China presale since presale has not started, but it is entirely possible that the presale so far in other markets that opened for IMAX screens is one of the highest, at this stage anyway. I'd be surprised if it is not, since this film would skew IMAX so much.

There has been some comment from Landau that Disney is committed to a healthy theatrical window for this film, which to me, sounds like it's gonna be at least 90 days.

I see that you agree Lo'ak looks so good in this pic😁

Oh my... While I 100% support the people's rage and protest against CCP and wish everyone all well; I really hope this "want to see a movie" thing doesn't take hold as one of the main narratives, that could 100% get A2 banned. And it really shouldn't become a major narrative anyway because the stake at hand when it comes to this protest is much much bigger than movies. I am going to go back to "hope for the best, expect the worst" mode when it comes to A2 in China.

It seems that Lo'ak, Kiri, Spider and Quaritch will all get their own fairly meaty narratives, and Lo'ak even has two (the romance angle and the outcast Tulkun friend angle); this is on top of what we are getting with Jake and Neytiri and Metkayina clan etc.. That is a lot of plot indeed, and now that I think about it, I think I'm starting to buy the theory that those leaked titles (The seed bearer, the Tulkun rider, Quest for Eywa) might really be alternatively titles of Avatar 2, and not necessarily the titles for the upcoming sequels.

Yeah, seeing videos of rage, large protest and "uprise" all over my twitter feed seemingly happening across China (especially in many campus all over the country); the XinJiang burning is like the last straw but really, it's the culmination of so many tragedies during these lockdown policies. This feels quite big because this type of stuff never happens in China except maybe a small corner somewhere, but never a coordinated effort like this. I'm kind of encouraged to see Chinese young people standing up again but also worried that we might soon witness another crackdown tragedy, I hope for the best and for everyone to be safe. Might lead to the loosening of zero-covid policy but CCP might also double down, who knows at this point...

While Del Toro's endorsement for TWOW is probably assured in any case, he really didn't have to say "A master at the peak of his powers" did he? Just going to interpret that as a positive sign.

Hey Kal! China's theatre opening rate is at 51% or so right now, could dip even further but unsure whether it'll come back up when A2 lands there, could maybe rely on a long run so that when cities locked down are reopened, A2 is still in theatre, in that case, we're going to see some interesting legs! I could still see $400M-$500M in China, not optimal, but then again, that would be better than any import films would receive these days; I am still cautiously hopeful for China numbers!

I picked up on that too when I was watching. Interesting comment.

It's always curious to me how there is a large portion of people completely uninformed about box office in r/boxoffice, it's not like it is the Youtube comment section we're talking about. You'd think they gather there precisely because they are interested in box office...

This is awesome news! To me, it's more important symbolically that it plays in Chinese theatres even if the film ultimately doesn't reach its box office potential there. At least Chinese fans get to see it in theatre. Also, due to current unusual circumstances, it'll be very fun to track!

Review embargo date does seem quite close to release. But I think we can decipher what the reception will likely be just from the social media reactions.

Coolest promotion effort so far!

Yes, this also reminds me, why are we seeing less and less of Spider with these later trailers, initially I got the impression that he's the focus, now it seems like Lo'ak and Kiri are the focus, the last trailer being more Kiri focused, this one has a bit more Lo'ak. Anyway, I liked this trailer a bit more than the second (which I also enjoyed). definitely think this makes a play for the more general audience than those of us already determined to see it. Also agree that the largest scale action scenes is kept hidden, feels like there's lots we haven't seen from the final act.

Are you hearing any update regarding the China situation?

Box office, box office legs, audience WOM, critics rating, industry recognition (PGA, DGA nomination), overseas appeal, Oscar Nomination, Oscar wins, Imdb average rating, or the fact this thread has 1239 pages and the sequel is the single largest driver of conversation on this forum right now (and has been for a couple of years, let's be honest). There doesn't seem to be an important "measure" that doesn't point to Avatar being a quality film, regardless of whether Oscar should be used as a barometer or not.

China isn't in a position to create any sort of record right now.

I really do like that there seems to be another trailer, while I liked the second trailer, I felt like it didn't quite do enough to drum up anticipation for those who are not already looking forward to A2, and the first teaser already kind of accomplished the "lure people back with the beauty of Pandora" which makes the second one a little redundant. This upcoming trailer I hope reveals more plot points and be more action packed.

I'm slightly more optimistic, granted the Chinese market condition is terrible and that's been discussed many times. But I still think the market is currently very much starved for a hit film for quite some time now, especially a Hollywood high production value import, there hasn't been anything to scratch that itch since.... Jurassic World Dominion. The market might be at like 30% 2019 capacity right now, but it will have high ticket price and I could see it leg it out to say $450M, which is like RMB 3.2B, or roughly on the same level as Moon Man.

Swear I'm done thinking about this Avatar 2 Will/or will not in China thing until the final outcome is clear, not good for my mental health to keep thinking about it...

Just want to start by explaining a few things. People use "likely" differently. For me, it's more of a "I think it's realistic and has a relatively good chance (>60%) of happening". Also, by 2019 I more meant 2019 market mood (no zero covid, not as nationalistic, able to get simultaneous release and no sabotaged run and good presale period... that sort of thing), the prediction of $1B would have to have 2021-2022 ATP baked in, I don't think getting to $1B is as simple with 2019 ATP. Also the thing regarding Avatar 2's trailer count, I think there might have been some miscommunication because the first teaser has more views than Endgame on BiliBili, it's only the official trailer number that was a bit "underwhelming", but China doesn't have a centralized video website like YouTube, and Avatar isn't exactly a hype franchise movie like MCU films, I think it's hard to gauge interest by just looking at view counts from certain channels, even then those numbers are fine. I think if you're on Chinese social media a lot, and I am, it's hard to miss the very high "general awareness" of both Avatar and Cameron, even if the anticipation doesn't seem "boiling hot" like with MCU films, the awareness of Avatar and its gravitas is very persistent. With China, it's always about casting the widest net possible, connect with Tier 3+ city audiences has always been a struggle for Hollywood films, but with Cameron, it's a bit different, the resonance is wide-reaching. Granted, Cameron hasn't released a film in post expansion China market, so all this is guess work. but the idea that Avatar might do $1B in idealized 2019, is not really based on an automatic assumption because Avatar was a miracle in China, if Avatar was a miracle, it wasn't Cameron's first. All three of Cameron's most recent releases have became the highest grossing film of all time in China, True Lies, Titanic (which nearly doubled the previous record), and Avatar (which pretty much tripled the previous record), those movies were not released in the same eras either. So there is a history of wide resonance and success there, more than just Avatar, and from this perspective, the general high awareness (thus the high "want to see" counts) and high reverence for Cameron is easier to understand. Here is the thinking process behind A2 doing $1B is an idealized China market: I think the idea behind A2 doing $1B was never based on lazy extrapolation, because then it would be much higher than $1B. If we extrapolate by market size, 2019 market was 10X 2009 and 6.3X 2010 (expansion thanks in huge part to Avatar), so if we go by that, the prediction would be somewhere between $1.2B to $2B (and we expected the market to be bigger by 2021-2022). If we extrapolate by relative performance, then tripling the current highest grosser would put it at $2.7B, no one is predicting that crazy number. The prediction of $1B, doesn't require A2 to repeat a Titanic and Avatar level of performance, it's requires a more understated but still phenomenon performance. We know in 2017 Wolf Warrior 2 grossed RMB 5.7B ($870M) and broke the all time record with like 160M admission, and since then the market further expanded by quite a bit in 2018 and 2019, up until that point, it was completely reasonable to believe that the market will keep expanding and by 2021-2022, the ATP would also grew higher. Within a few years of Wolf Warrior 2, a few things were clear: 1. The Market expansion is China is driven by higher admission, 100M admission (or near that level) films occur more frequently, even multiple times in a year: Wandering Earth (105M), NeZha(141M), Hi Mom(121M), TBALC (125M). Detective Chinatown 3 (95M). 2. The Average Ticket price keeps rising, Wandering Earth can gross RMB4.7B with 55M less admission than WW2, and even crazier, Endgame was able to gross RMB4.25B with like 87M admission - there was reason to believe that ATP would be even higher in 2021-2022. 3. The Chinese market can support a $1.2-1.3B film, even in 2019, but the right film (combining WW2 admission and Endgame ATP) hasn't appeared yet, with the market keep expanding in admission and ATP, it made sense to assume that in 2021-2022, the market theoretical capacity would be even higher than 2019. 4. With Endgame's gross, we know Hollywood film can still do good business, the problem is MCU doesn't quite cast as wide of a net in China as Cameron films or even Fast 7 and Transformers 4 (both were at one point the highest grosser ever in China, something Endgame could not achieve). The release of Battle of Lake Changjin in 2021 even further confirms this, it has like 35M less admission than WW2 but still outgrossed it, at $910M, without coming anywhere close to maximum admission capacity, and that's during Pandemic era. One can assume A2 would have higher ATP. So for Avatar 2 to gross $1B in an idealized China market, with inflated Avatar 2 fashion ATP with all the PLFs, in 2021-2022, it pretty much just requires a "Top 3 of year type of admission" and very high ATP to kick it over the $1B mark. A admission similar to Hi Mom, or TBALC would probably do (though not with this crappy exchange rate), doesn't need to even reach NeZha level. And since we've gotten 160M admission back in 2017; it wasn't unreasonable to think by 2021-2022, >100M admission would become very common place, considering the population, and 120M wouldn't even be some sort of all-timer performance, we'd see that every year. So $1B really wouldn't have required A2 to do miracle and double or triple the previous grosser, or even reach the WW2 admission number, it would just require a banger, best of the year type of run, and let high ATP do the work. I think because of all the reasons I listed, a $1B projection wasn't unrealistic at all. Of course, this is all just talk now, and not relevant in the current market condition. Since 2019 the pandemic happened, the population grew way way more nationalistic, exchange rate is bad, 58% of theatres are open, and the ones that can go are probably scared to. So really just to reminisce the past, and wonder what China could have been under current conditions. If A2 does like $450M in China, I'd probably have tears of joy.

Assuming they are going to be doing screening for critics and other award bodies to get into nominations, I think we can probably expect to read first reactions on social media in early Dec, very close now!

Might be using an outdated adjusted number, because using ticket price ratio 7.5 ATP in 2009 and 11 ATP in 2022 would put the Avatar adjusted number close to 1.1B, and a 25% decrease would still be $800M +

Good to see, but tbf, considering the competition this Holiday, it would be disastrous if Avatar isn't number 1 "want to see"...