Avatar: The Way of Water | 16 DEC 2022 | Don't worry guys, critics like it

[interiorgatordecorator]

2 hours ago, JustLurking said:

That's what makes it even more fun. Not only are the ranges huge, people will even be arguing over whether the numbers mean a success, a disappointment, or an expected result no matter what they are (barring the two extremes where it's either crushing every record, or has an insane collapse, obviously). Love it or hate it, I think we can all agree the discussions for this are going to be amusing to say the least.

 

Any ww-c gross under nwh ww is a disappointment in my book

[AniNate]

When this was still supposed to be coming out just a few years after the first I would've said to anticipate a drop, but now inflation has gotten so high that I almost feel like matching the first should be the baseline for "not a disappointment".

 

All I hope for though is the quality is there and it still turns a profit.

 

 

[hw64]

19 minutes ago, Shanks said:

Europe's "MARKET" grew because the number of films released increased way more. That doesn't mean the Market for "Individual" Films has grown too. Let's only talk about the biggest 2019 year in Europe: It was a year that will be very tough to re-create for years to come, also it wasn't a year that was led by a single film but by multiple films of the same calibers. 

 

Are you suggesting 600 movies being attended 1 Billion times/ year vs. 800+ Movies being attended just 1.25 Billion/year as a growth? Don't give wrong info. 

 

THIS IS YEARLY CHART OF NUMBER OF Hollywood MOVIES RELEASED:

 

Does your graph look pretty now? Did the Market really grow for you to advocate that Avatar 2 has a chance to outgrow Avatar in Admissions? Which year seems most impressive now?

 

The char you've provided is a chart of the number of films released in the US and Canada per year, not the number of films released in Europe:

 

 

(see also: https://www.statista.com/statistics/187122/movie-releases-in-north-america-since-2001/)

 

I also don't accept the idea that an increase in the number of films being released necessarily means any sort of significant increase in the number of admissions. Film admissions follow the Pareto principle, in that a huge proportion of the overall yearly admissions in any given market come from very few films, those being the major Hollywood blockbusters in most cases.

 

The number of these Hollywood blockbusters has stayed relatively static for the past decade or more. Here's a graph of the number of "big 6" (now big 5) Hollywood wide releases each year:

 

 

Graph source here, original data from The Numbers here.

 

So in fact, the increase in the number of films being released is being driven by non-wide, non-big 6 releases, many of which are very small budget films with very limited releases which contribute very, very, very little to the admissions total in comparison to the big Hollywood blockbusters — 100 of these types of films could quite easily contribute 5% as much to the admissions total as a big Hollywood movie.

 

So you can't just divide the yearly admissions by the number of films released each year to get the average ticket sales per movie, and then conclude that the market has shrunk because the average admissions per movie has decreased. Again, this increase in film releases is being driven by movies which contribute very little towards the admissions total, and which significantly skew the average admissions statistic.

 

Also, I'm not advocating that Avatar 2 will grow from Avatar in admissions in Europe — I was responding to Brainbug's point that "the [European] market has shrunken a lot [since 2009]", which I disagree with and which I don't think there is data to support (in the macro case of Europe as a whole, and not looking at individual markets). I don't think there's any reason to believe that an Avatar-like performance in Europe in terms of admissions is now impossible, Russia excluding.

[dudalb]

Does anybody have a figure ony  how much A2 will cost?

I would be mildly surpised, given how long it has taken and Cameron's spending habits if it is not the most  expensive movie ever made.

And Disney will use every tactic to maximaze the film's boxoffice.  They want to get as big a return as possible on a massive investment. That means it will take a long time to show up on Disney+.

[AniNate]

$250 mil, $1 billion for the sequels collectively

 

https://deadline.com/2017/09/avatar-james-cameron-four-consecutive-sequels-1-billion-budget-1202176798/

 

Obviously that is still pretty expensive and may have ballooned in the last five years, but I don't think the movies have really been a case of "bloated, messy production" that usually results in inflated budgets a la the Pirates sequels. They've been produced with relatively little incident, it's mainly just been a matter of the tech getting developed and bad luck that have delayed them so long.

[WittyUsername]

Personally, I hope this movie either is a massive success that shocks everyone, just like the last two James Cameron movies, or a flop that will put the franchise on ice. To hell with anything in between! 

[SchumacherFTW]

8 hours ago, AniNate said:

$250 mil, $1 billion for the sequels collectively

 

https://deadline.com/2017/09/avatar-james-cameron-four-consecutive-sequels-1-billion-budget-1202176798/

 

Obviously that is still pretty expensive and may have ballooned in the last five years, but I don't think the movies have really been a case of "bloated, messy production" that usually results in inflated budgets a la the Pirates sequels. They've been produced with relatively little incident, it's mainly just been a matter of the tech getting developed and bad luck that have delayed them so long.

The best example of wasting a budget is Justice League costing 300+m. I'm sure however much is spent on these Avatar sequels, we'll see it on the screen. 

[TomCruiseTop]

Preface: all posts in this thread should relate to Avatar 2 and its Box Office potential - not your own views on politics or the impact of certain economic trends on human beings. With that in mind:

 

In my view, this is really good news: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/11/inflation-data-white-house-expects-big-price-hikes-in-march-cpi-report.html

 

The fact that the fed is warning about just how bad inflation currently is before the CPI report even comes out makes me think the real inflation rate is at least 20% and probably higher than that. Of course that's good for Box Office 'earnings' potential in and of itself, but I think there is an even bigger play here. If Powell really does decide to invoke Volcker and ramp up interest rates that could cause a 'correction' (read crash) that would provide a window of opportunity wherein the American economy is both down AND inflation is high. That won't last very long as fed action of that level would of course act as deflationary.

 

Now, this is where we can theory craft a bit, I expect that these CPI numbers are going to be so bad that the Fed might even call an emergency meeting, and basically admit that this level of inflation can't continue, and so start to stem the bleeding. We're 8 months out on A2's release, it's not the perfect time frame IF we see a rate hike before the end of April. If Powell holds off and waits until May or later? I think we're cooking with some serious gas then, 4 billies might even start to look relatively 'low' from a dollar value perspective.

[Elessar]

The market is pretty volatile at the moment so long term predictions can be a bit of a crapshoot. What's the economy gonna be? COVID could have some serious ramifications especially in markets like China. Maybe it would have been better to delay Avatar 2 another year... 😐

[Brainbug]

If youve ever felt bad about getting somewhere too late, remember that Avatar 2 originally aimed for a 2014 release.

[Issac Newton]

I have huge expectations from Avatar 2 like ¥6000M in Mainland China, HK$300M in Hong Kong, 15M admits in Korea, NT$1500M in Taiwan, SG$30M in Singapore, RM100M in Malaysia..... $50M+ in Central America, ATG in Mexico &Brazil, £100M in UK+IRE and more and more! Can we forgot about CoVid-19 for sometimes and see it's run without CoVid-19 because we are still months and months away from actual premiere 😇

Edited April 12, 2022 by Issac Newton

[XXR vs XXR]

34 minutes ago, Issac Newton said:

I have huge expectations from Avatar 2 like ¥6000M in Mainland China, HK$300M in Hong Kong, 15M admits in Korea, NT$1500M in Taiwan, SG$30M in Singapore, RM100M in Malaysia..... $50M+ in Central America, ATG in Mexico &Brazil, £100M in UK+IRE and more and more! Can we forgot about CoVid-19 for sometimes and see it's run without CoVid-19 because we are still months and months away from actual premiere 😇

All of these numbers are achievable. Not saying they’ll happen but at least these are possible, unlike some of the numbers you were mentioning a few months ago.

[TomCruiseTop]

1 hour ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

If youve ever felt bad about getting somewhere too late, remember that Avatar 2 originally aimed for a 2014 release.

This is a total fabrication. Fox originally would have loved for this to be the release date but nothing of this kind of plan ever came out of Jim's mouth AFAIK.

 

In fact if we take a look at the Wikipedia article it's actually staggering the number of outright falsehoods are allowed to be promulgated about this film.

 

The two quotes in bold are both wrong. The first being wrong because it's unsourced in the article itself, and as I said before, I don't remember Jim clearly stating this as the window - esp. given the fact he was elbow deep in the Challenger Deep project at this time. The second is totally made up by the article that it is sourced from. I have seen this lie mentioned multiple times across the internet - never, not once, did he say he intended to film footage from that dive for any Avatar film. They were in 3D for the Deepsea Challenge documentary that was put out in 2014. In fact it was only really during the press tour for that doc that Jim really started to discuss the time frames for A2 coming out, I'm not saying it hasn't been delayed numerous times, but man, the amount of misinformation is insane.

 

 

Quote

In 2006, Cameron stated that if Avatar was successful, he hoped to make two sequels to the film.^[13] In 2010, he said the film's widespread success confirmed that he would do so.^[14]The sequels were originally scheduled for release in December 2014 and 2015.^[15]He included certain scenes in the first film for future story follow-ups.^[13][20] Cameron planned to shoot the sequels back-to-back and to begin work "once the novel is nailed down".^[56] He stated that the sequels would widen the universe while exploring other moons of Polyphemus.^[57] The first sequel would focus on the ocean of Pandora and also feature more of the rainforest.^[58]He intended to capture footage for this sequel at the bottom of the Mariana Trench using a deepwater submersible.^[59] In 2011, Cameron stated that he was just starting to design the ocean ecosystem of Pandora and the other worlds to be included in the story. The storyline, although continuing the environmental theme of the first film, would not be "strident" since the film will concentrate on entertainment.^[60]

 

 

 

[TomCruiseTop]

1 hour ago, Brainbug the Dinosaur said:

If youve ever felt bad about getting somewhere too late, remember that Avatar 2 originally aimed for a 2014 release.

In fact the more I dig into this claim the clearer it is that Jim intended to start production proper in 2014 for an initial 2016 December release. Widely misreported as intending to do a 2014 release.

[AniNate]

3 hours ago, Elessar said:

The market is pretty volatile at the moment so long term predictions can be a bit of a crapshoot. What's the economy gonna be? COVID could have some serious ramifications especially in markets like China. Maybe it would have been better to delay Avatar 2 another year... 😐

 

God I sure hope it's not delayed just because of China. Who knows if they'll ever move away from their Covid policies. They're pretty much the only "zero-Covid" holdout at this point and the exhibition economy as a whole sure can't wait for them.

 

The sequels still shouldn't have a problem turning a profit assuming they perform anywhere close to how the original did in the rest of the world.

 

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by AniNate

[interiorgatordecorator]

8 hours ago, JamesCameronScholar said:

Preface: all posts in this thread should relate to Avatar 2 and its Box Office potential - not your own views on politics or the impact of certain economic trends on human beings. With that in mind:

 

In my view, this is really good news: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/11/inflation-data-white-house-expects-big-price-hikes-in-march-cpi-report.html

 

The fact that the fed is warning about just how bad inflation currently is before the CPI report even comes out makes me think the real inflation rate is at least 20% and probably higher than that. Of course that's good for Box Office 'earnings' potential in and of itself, but I think there is an even bigger play here. If Powell really does decide to invoke Volcker and ramp up interest rates that could cause a 'correction' (read crash) that would provide a window of opportunity wherein the American economy is both down AND inflation is high. That won't last very long as fed action of that level would of course act as deflationary.

 

Now, this is where we can theory craft a bit, I expect that these CPI numbers are going to be so bad that the Fed might even call an emergency meeting, and basically admit that this level of inflation can't continue, and so start to stem the bleeding. We're 8 months out on A2's release, it's not the perfect time frame IF we see a rate hike before the end of April. If Powell holds off and waits until May or later? I think we're cooking with some serious gas then, 4 billies might even start to look relatively 'low' from a dollar value perspective.

 

I'd be slightly annoyed if avatar 2s box office potential could be mostly explained away due to economics, the box office benefit of a weakened dollar should be the cherry on top of a historic box office run. I don't think Id be totally satisfied with anything under the first ones numbers when adjusted for 2019 exchange rates. 

Edited April 12, 2022 by interiorgatordecorator

[AniNate]

I definitely don't see a spike in inflation as a "flex". Just because the ticket price may cost more doesn't mean people will pay more.

[TomCruiseTop]

1 hour ago, interiorgatordecorator said:

 

I'd be slightly annoyed if avatar 2s box office potential could be mostly explained away due to economics, the box office benefit of a weakened dollar the cherry on top of a historic box office run. I don't think Id be totally satisfied with anything under the first ones numbers when adjusted for 2019 exchange rates. 

You think it's coincidence that Avatar came out just after the great recession? The Box Office is economics my man, part of Jim's genius is his understanding and use of that fact.

[AniNate]

Michelle Yeoh hype 

 

https://ew.com/movies/michelle-yeoh-upcoming-roles-avatar-sequel/

 

 

 

 

[dudalb]

12 hours ago, AniNate said:

I definitely don't see a spike in inflation as a "flex". Just because the ticket price may cost more doesn't mean people will pay more.

At least in the US inflation will hurt the overall box office. Most people here are single, but if you raising a family your entertainment budget will take a hit. 

People will become more  selective. They will still see the films they really want to see, but a lot of the ones they are only thinking about seeing will suffer.