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

[Jessie]

1 hour ago, Gokai Red said:

Disney has nothing to be worried about as far as release dates go. SW has proven it's the biggest kid on the block by far, and at this point, Avatar would have much more to lose going head to head with SW than SW would going against Avatar, so if Disney does decide that SW becomes a December thing, Fox better find a new place for Avatar.

 

again, did I miss something?

[WrathOfHan]

RE Avatar Land: The project is already way overbudget and Disney wants it done ASAP. Star Wars Land won't even be the first thing completed in the DHS renovation.

[arlo]

4 hours ago, JonathanLB said:

It will be interesting to watch what happens, that's for sure. But Avatar isn't king of the castle (anymore? ever?), Star Wars is, so Star Wars gets to pick a release date and everything else can deal with it however they choose. Or not, really. It's up to Fox if they want to get blown away by Star Wars. I wouldn't mind that at all, frankly. TFA is already the highest grossing movie ever made domestically, so even if it cost Episode VIII $100M in lost business, it would torpedo Avatar 2 enough to make sure TFA keeps its throne no matter what. In that case, Episodes VIII and IX can be used like cruiser and destroyer escorts to the aircraft carrier that is TFA

 

But none of that will happen. Avatar will screw off to wherever else it can find a release window. December is spoken for.

 

Actually, despite some Star Wars fans suddenly converting to hyper-nationalism and acting as if only box office from one country matters, Avatar remains "king of the castle" by a vast margin at the box office of Planet Earth. Unless you want to adjust for things like inflation and market expansion, in which case Titanic is king. Either way Cameron is King.

 

While I think it's extremely likely that the Avatar sequels will decline a lot, your assertion that they will be "blown away" by SW sequels is at this point merely an assumption that lacks much evidence. Your gloating and chest-thumping over SW8's new release date is especially silly given that Fox had never even announced that date for Avatar 2, and the script for it still hasn't been completed. I said here weeks ago that it was extremely unlikely to meet that date.

 

I see no reason to believe that the sequels will flee December and "screw off to wherever else it can find a release window." As much satisfaction as that would evidently give you, Fox may never even have to give a moment's thought to avoiding Star Wars. December 2018 is currently wide open, and for months that's been the most realistic release date for Avatar 2. While Cameron hopes to release Avatar 3 & 4 over the subsequent two years, there's good reason to doubt they'll be ready that quickly. James Horner expressed such skepticism in an interview last spring, citing his knowledge of how Cameron works and how difficult the sequels will be to make, and saying that while the technology is ready for Avatar 2, it's not ready for Avatar 3. Maybe it is now or will be soon, but I think Avatar 3 probably won't be ready by December 2019, when SW9 will likely be released.

Edited January 21, 2016 by arlo

[IronJimbo]

Forget about the numbers, the reason Star Wars is king is because...

 

wait for it..

 

here I go...

 

Star Wars is king becasue.....

 

you ready?

 

Here I go.....

 

it's king...

 

because...

 

It's Star Wars.

[DAJK]

2 hours ago, IronJimbo said:

Forget about the numbers, the reason Star Wars is king is because...

 

wait for it..

 

here I go...

 

Star Wars is king becasue.....

 

you ready?

 

Here I go.....

 

it's king...

 

because...

 

It's Star Wars.

Dang it, I'm out of likes

[EmpireCity]

2 hours ago, IronJimbo said:

Forget about the numbers, the reason Star Wars is king is because...

 

wait for it..

 

here I go...

 

Star Wars is king becasue.....

 

you ready?

 

Here I go.....

 

it's king...

 

because...

 

It's Star Wars.

 

Star Wars is king not only because it is Star Wars, but because it has the biggest and toughest daddy on the block named Disney backing it up.  

 

Release dates and the exhibition business is all about politics and power, and if you want to get screens you better have that power.  If Disney wants to move in on a release date, then Disney is going to get that release date.  Why?  Because it owns Lucasfilm/Marvel/Pixar/Disney Animation/Buena Vista and nobody is going to stand against that for any other studio.  

[MrFanaticGuy34]

The question is....where in 2018, do you think they'll put Avatar 2 in? January or February?

[LinksterAC]

3 hours ago, arlo said:

 

Actually, despite some Star Wars fans suddenly converting to hyper-nationalism and acting as if only box office from one country matters, Avatar remains "king of the castle" by a vast margin at the box office of Planet Earth. Unless you want to adjust for things like inflation and market expansion, in which case Titanic is king. Either way Cameron is King.

 

 

It's not a vast margin.  It all depends on the currency you count receipts in, which is essentially a totally arbitrary thing.  If you counted receipts in Canadian dollars, TFA would be right on Avatar's heels.  The global difference between TFA and Avatar will end up around 9% when adjusting for ER fluctuations between their runs.  See mine or @peludo's threads on this subject in the International Box Office forum.  

 

It will be an interesting contest between the two franchises.  If Episode VII made inroads in some of the markets where Star Wars wasn't historically popular (see China), we could see some epic global battles.  It also depends on whether the original Avatar resonated culturally (the way Star Wars does in the USA), or exploded because of the groundbreaking visual experience.  It was absolutely a must see because of the visuals, and particularly the 3D.  3D tickets are not quite the premium they used to be, nor are they the unique draw (at least in the West) they were in 2010.

 

But I've said it before: Cameron is a groundbreaking film maker, and he may have something up his sleeve that enhances the movie-going experience yet again.  If that's the case, the Avatar sequels could match the relative performance of the original (adjusted for ER, and inflation).

Edited January 21, 2016 by LinksterAC

[AndyLL]

10 hours ago, vc2002 said:

Disney is building a Avatar theme park with Cameron, so I think as partners Disney and Cameron will work out a best solution for their SW and Avatar films.

 

Other than being owned by the same corporation there is little synergy between the movie and parks divisions.   Different segments run by different people. 

 

Avatarland will have zero affect on the Studio Entertainment division 

[MovieMan89]

9 hours ago, somebody85 said:

 

As someone who lives less then two hours from Orlando, this is completely on point.
 

Avatar will make a good attraction but already all the advertising here is for Star Wars. And this is long before that attraction opens.

Disney has needed something for a long time to compete with Universal. The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter was a game changer.

They would be very very smart to move as fast as possible with the Star Wars expansion because that will draw people from all over much like Harry Potter did. The only new attraction Disney added was the Snow White mine ride I believe. They always do a lot of advertising for Star Wars weekend though.

Once again, Avatar does not have that crazy fanbase of something like Star Wars, Marvel (which is still at Islands Of Adventure), Harry Potter, etc.. However I do think it's lands will make for a great attraction. But I'm not paying to go to Animal World (or whatever it's called) to experience it.

There is also a lot of speculation about the Frozen ride. I don't hear much about Avatars land.

This really isn't how theme parks work though. Yes hype for upcoming attractions based on big IPs is very helpful, but in the end it is the final product that sells it. Case and point: plenty of people thought making a whole land dedicated to Cars as the focal point of the California Adventure expansion was a huge waste of money. But it turns out Radiator Springs fits a theme park like a glove, and the land was amazing and people loved it. It accomplished its goal as the big draw for that park. Now, as much as I'm looking forward to Star Wars land, I think Avatar land has the potential to be even more amazing. I mean the world of Pandora was the reason Avatar worked in the first place, and now Disney and Cameron are working hard and investing a lot to try to bring that place from the movies to life. I mean they are figuring out how to actually build the floating mountains so they look like they float and have the bio-luminescent ecosystem come to life at night! Look at some of this concept art:

 

It is going to absolutely blow people away if done right, and from what I can tell so far it's definitely being done right. WOM will spread like wildfire when Pandora opens next year, pre-release hype be damned. At any rate, construction is already well under way for it, and hasn't even begun on SW land. There's no reason to delay a land ready to open next year for one that won't be ready for at least 3 more years even if they invest all their resources into it. 

[Jayhawk the Hutt]

Avatar Land has always excited me. I need to make a trip down to WDW in a few years once it and Star Wars Land are finished. Disney Imagineering and Cameron are really a match made in heaven. 

[MovieMan89]

3 minutes ago, Jayhawk said:

Avatar Land has always excited me. I need to make a trip down to WDW in a few years once it and Star Wars Land are finished. Disney Imagineering and Cameron are really a match made in heaven. 

I realistically don't see SW land being done until 2020. Pandora was announced in early 2011 and will open a full 6 years later than that. Cars Land was announced in '07 I believe and opened in 2012. 5-6 years is Disney's typical time-frame for completing a newly announced land. Not only that, but SW land is the biggest undertaking they have ever done outside of an entirely new theme park, so even at a faster construction pace it could take just as long. Disney is terrible about constructing, they like to draw it out to cut costs. Granted I could see them maybe trying to rush it for a 2019 opening with IX's release, but even if they throw a ton of money at it that's probably the absolute earliest it can be finished.  

[Jayhawk the Hutt]

Just now, MovieMan89 said:

I realistically don't see SW land being done until 2020. Pandora was announced in early 2011 and will open a full 6 years later than that. Cars Land was announced in '07 I believe and opened in 2012. 5-6 years is Disney's typical time-frame for completing a newly announced land. Not only that, but SW land is the biggest undertaking they have ever done outside of an entirely new theme park, so even at a faster construction pace it could take just as long. Disney is terrible about constructing, they like to draw it out to cut costs. Granted I could see them maybe trying to rush it for a 2019 opening with IX's release, but even if they throw a ton of money at it that's probably the absolute earliest it can be finished.  

Yeah, from what I've read 2019-2020 will be the time-frame for SW Land. Although didn't Pandora get announced very early on in the process as a response to Harry Potter at Universal? I thought they only started construction on it a few years ago, not back in 2011.

[WrathOfHan]

I'm pretty excited for Pandora and I'm not a big Avatar fan. The simulator is supposed to be amazing and the environment looks really cool.

 

2 minutes ago, Jayhawk said:

Yeah, from what I've read 2019-2020 will be the time-frame for SW Land. Although didn't Pandora get announced very early on in the process as a response to Harry Potter at Universal? I thought they only started construction on it a few years ago, not back in 2011.

Correct

 

5 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

I realistically don't see SW land being done until 2020. Pandora was announced in early 2011 and will open a full 6 years later than that. Cars Land was announced in '07 I believe and opened in 2012. 5-6 years is Disney's typical time-frame for completing a newly announced land. Not only that, but SW land is the biggest undertaking they have ever done outside of an entirely new theme park, so even at a faster construction pace it could take just as long. Disney is terrible about constructing, they like to draw it out to cut costs. Granted I could see them maybe trying to rush it for a 2019 opening with IX's release, but even if they throw a ton of money at it that's probably the absolute earliest it can be finished.  

The original plan was to have Toy Story open in 2018 and Star Wars in 2020 or 2021, but the speed of construction has been ramped up. A late 2018 open is possible for SW but 2019 is more likely.

[hw64]

50 minutes ago, LinksterAC said:

 

It's not a vast margin.  It all depends on the currency you count receipts in, which is essentially a totally arbitrary thing.  If you counted receipts in Canadian dollars, TFA would be right on Avatar's heels.  The global difference between TFA and Avatar will end up around 9% when adjusting for ER fluctuations between their runs.  See mine or @peludo's threads on this subject in the International Box Office forum.  

 

It will be an interesting contest between the two franchises.  If Episode VII made inroads in some of the markets where Star Wars wasn't historically popular (see China), we could see some epic global battles.  It also depends on whether the original Avatar resonated culturally (the way Star Wars does in the USA), or exploded because of the groundbreaking visual experience.  It was absolutely a must see because of the visuals, and particularly the 3D.  3D tickets are not quite the premium they used to be, nor are they the unique draw (at least in the West) they were in 2010.

 

But I've said it before: Cameron is a groundbreaking film maker, and he may have something up his sleeve that enhances the movie-going experience yet again.  If that's the case, the Avatar sequels could match the relative performance of the original (adjusted for ER, and inflation).

 

If you want to continue pushing the "I'm only going to adjust for exchange rates and ignore everything else", then sure. Looking at admissions or local currency gross for all the major markets, it's not even close, and that's without taking into account market expansion, ticket price inflation, general inflation, etc. (the latter two only being relevant for countries where we don't have admission data).

 

Trying to adjust for exchange rates using a static multiplier from an exchange rate website on the dollar gross for a particular country is a poor and inaccurate substitute that should only be used when we don't have admission data (first priority) and when we don't have local currency data (second); nobody knows how studios calculate and adjust for changing exchange rates over the course of a movie's release. As it turns out, we DO have extensive admission/local currency data for both Avatar and TFA, so trying to replicate which rates the studios used is a pointless exercise. Here's some data I've gathered so far:

 

Avatar vs. TFA in admissions/local currency:

UK: £94.0m (16.51m admissions) vs. £113.9m through last week

Australia: $115.6m AUD, 7.69m admissions vs. $85m AUD through January 17 (will finish at around $93-95m)

Germany: 11.3m admissions vs. 8m current admissions (looking at 9m finish)

France: 14.7m admissions vs. 9.1m admissions through January 11 (will finish at just over 10m)

Italy: €65.67m (7.49m admissions) vs. €25M (3.27m admissions) through last Sunday

Spain: €77.03m, 9.5m admissions vs. 4.3m admissions through last Friday

South Korea: 13.62m admissions vs. 3.2m admissions through January 11

Japan: ¥15.6b vs. ¥9b through January 17 (looking at just over ¥10b total)

Russia: 3.6b RUB, 14.11m admissions vs. 1.8b RUB through January 11 (significant market expansion since 2009)

China: 1391m yuan vs. 700m yuan through Thursday (significant market expansion since 2009)

Brazil: 102.9m BRL vs. (will update)

 

As you can see, even in the territories that are closest (Australia, Germany), Avatar is 20-25% ahead of TFA. Everywhere else, it's a massive blowout. The only place where TFA scores a clear victory is in the UK, and even there it's unclear how it would fare in admissions: Skyfall (2012) is estimated to have made 400k less admissions than Avatar did in 2009 despite grossing £8m more. I'm still gathering data but what you see above is pretty conclusive, especially the admission data which bypasses having to account for inflation and ticket price inflation.

[MovieMan89]

7 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

I'm pretty excited for Pandora and I'm not a big Avatar fan. The simulator is supposed to be amazing and the environment looks really cool.

 

Correct

 

The original plan was to have Toy Story open in 2018 and Star Wars in 2020 or 2021, but the speed of construction has been ramped up. A late 2018 open is possible for SW but 2019 is more likely.

Yeah, I heard that but there's nothing in the world that would make me buy a 2018 opening for SW land. I've followed too many Disney park constructions to get fooled. Construction for it would have had to be at least close to going vertical for that to have a chance. They've yet to even announce where exactly they're building it in Hollywood Studios. And in Disneyland they are going to have to completely re-route the Rivers of America/Disneyland Railroad, as they are cutting it short to create some new land. They're also demolishing Big Thunder Ranch for it, which I don't believe has started either yet. I'm guessing IX's release in 2019 is their current target, but I only give that about a 50/50 chance of happening even if they really try. 

Edited January 21, 2016 by MovieMan89

[WrathOfHan]

5 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

Yeah, I heard that but there's nothing in the world that would make me buy a 2018 opening for SW land. I've followed too many Disney park constructions to get fooled. Construction for it would have had to be at least close to going vertical for that to have a chance. They've yet to even announce where exactly they're building it in Hollywood Studios. And in Disneyland they are going to have to completely re-route the Rivers of America/Disneyland Railroad, as they are cutting it short to create some new land. They're also demolishing Big Thunder Ranch for it, which I don't believe has started either yet. I'm guessing IX's release in 2019 is their current target, but I only give that about a 50/50 chance of happening even if they really try. 

2019 is a solid target for both coasts. I can't see them going into next decade on SW, having a new lead at Imagineering should help.

Edited January 21, 2016 by WrathOfHan

[Jayhawk the Hutt]

5 minutes ago, WrathOfHan said:

2019 is a solid target for both coasts. I can't see them going into next decade on SW, having a new lead at Imagineering should help.

Do you have an AP, Han?

[WrathOfHan]

Just now, Jayhawk said:

Do you have an AP, Han?

Used to, I haven't been to WDW since December 2014. I plan on getting one again in the Fall when crowds die down, the new stuff at Epcot is open, and Avatar is only months away.

[MovieMan89]

Hollywood Studios will be a construction war zone starting later this year until 2019-2021. Stay away from there.