A2 WEEKEND THREAD | 134.1M DOM OW | Thurs 17m / Fri 36m / Sat 45m / Sun 36m

[ZattMurdock]

15 minutes ago, Reddroast said:

I've been trying explain this to people on here for the last year. 

 

 

The shift from spectacle driven blockbusters to character-driven ones is a huge thing that no one here is really talking about. 

 

The Marketing for this has been not good. It needed to start with teasers at NWH last year. 

The first film blew the roof off of hall h back in 09. Why wasn't it there? Why wasnt there an avatar day during the summer where you could drop a documentary on why it took 13 years?!

 

Some of this is on fox and Disney and some of it on James Cameron for not reaching out to other forms of media ( books, animated series, /anime. You have a deal with Ubisoft why didn't work with them to make games that help fill out the universe a decade ago?!)

 

Once again, as I said in the box office club I created, I could be wrong on this and it could be bigger than the 1st. But it's obvious to me the franchise has been mismanaged for various reasons for 13 years.

I somewhat disagree with this. It isn’t the marketing. Unlike the MCU, Star Wars or Batman, there isn’t enough marketing that could make people hyped for Avatar to the point of getting anywhere close to what the first one did. I remember vividly how John Carter was marketed into oblivion back in 2012 and people simply didn’t care.
 

We live in an age that every other week we get the hot new shiny piece of entertainment, mostly from streaming. The world today is simply way too different than 2009, and most of all, unlike the MCU or Star Wars, the conditions for a perfect storm for Avatar 2 was never there. Marketing the hell out of it wouldn’t help, what it needed to blow up is the kind of hype for Maverick on steroids, and correct me if I’m wrong but Maverick was far bigger in North America than pretty much anywhere else, so even bigger than that. Spider-Man: No Way Home had the build up of not just a very successful Spider-Man trilogy, but literally 20 years of Spider-Man mythology, you just can’t compete with that kind of build up.

 

What Avatar actually needs is to people to care. Not about the spectacle, because today spectacle is easy and abundant, to be honest, Jimbo isn’t competing with other franchises, but everything: streaming, games, social media, etc. For Avatar sequels stop being diminishing returns, people need to care about the story. Will they? Exposing the story in trailers wouldn’t make that happen. What Disney and Cameron need to hope is that people will connect with the story, so it can create a build up for its sequels. Cameron simply took too damn long for a sequel, and if he was waiting for better 3D tech, it’s just not there yet to replicate the novelty of the first one.

[AnDr3s]

some of guys  really are saying this is going to gross less OS-C than joker

[danziger]

26 minutes ago, Vector Sigma said:

If this gets an A- or B+ I'm calling the bomb squad. B+ would be catastrophic. We have to remember there's weird people that want this movie to fail so that they can meme it. I've never seen a movie with so many people cheering for its downfall. This needs great WOM to silence that criticism. I really believe this is getting an A though. 

 

Avatar had a dedicated anti-fanbase before anyone had seen it. South Park had a whole episode mocking it over a month before it was even released. Then it had amazing WOM and the mocking only got louder by the year. It's locked in regardless of what Cameron does, but thankfully it isn't remotely representative of the general audience and imo is irrelevant to whether we get Avatar 4 & 5.

[LinksterAC]

I’ll say this as someone who has pretty serious criticisms of this movie’s writing, its emotional core is solid gold & will have a broad appeal. It’s also a must-see in terms of the technical achievement, and really should be seen in the best PLF you have available.

 

All that points me in the direction of a suppressed(ish) opening weekend & long, long legs—just like the original.

 

Despite my criticisms, I’ll definitely be seeing it again.

[Gopher]

A 140/560 domestic run would've been seen as a huge win two months ago, and a higher gross retention than the followups to the other highest grossers of all time (Force Awakens, Black Panther, Avengers) had...

[shachi86]

13 minutes ago, krla said:

Did they forget to market it to white people?

 

There are no white people in this movie, only blue people.

[cooldude97]

46 minutes ago, XXR Tulkun Rider said:

Friendship and cocaine.
 

cocaine bear confirmed to make more then avatar 2 

[Reddroast]

5 minutes ago, Alligator Zatt said:

I somewhat disagree with this. It isn’t the marketing. Unlike the MCU, Star Wars or Batman, there isn’t enough marketing that could make people hyped for Avatar to the point of getting anywhere close to what the first one did. I remember vividly how John Carter was marketed into oblivion back in 2012 and people simply didn’t care.
 

We live in an age that every other week we get the hot new shiny piece of entertainment, mostly from streaming. The world today is simply way too different than 2009, and most of all, unlike the MCU or Star Wars, the conditions for a perfect storm for Avatar 2 was never there. Marketing the hell out of it wouldn’t help, what it needed to blow up is the kind of hype for Maverick on steroids, and correct me if I’m wrong but Maverick was far bigger in North America than pretty much anywhere else, so even bigger than that. Spider-Man: No Way Home had the build up of not just a very successful Spider-Man trilogy, but literally 20 years of Spider-Man mythology, you just can’t compete with that kind of build up.

 

What Avatar actually needs is to people to care. Not about the spectacle, because today spectacle is easy and abundant, to be honest, Jimbo isn’t competing with other franchises, but everything: streaming, games, social media, etc. For Avatar sequels stop being diminishing returns, people need to care about the story. Will they? Exposing the story in trailers wouldn’t make that happen. What Disney and Cameron need to hope is that people will connect with the story, so it can create a build up for its sequels. Cameron simply took too damn long for a sequel, and if he was waiting for better 3D tech, it’s just not there yet to replicate the novelty of the first one.

While that is true to a degree.... The reason star wars has remained a pop culture monolith for 45 years is doing all secondary marketing by tv, novels, and video games.

[Ozymandias]

11 minutes ago, Alligator Zatt said:

I somewhat disagree with this. It isn’t the marketing. Unlike the MCU, Star Wars or Batman, there isn’t enough marketing that could make people hyped for Avatar to the point of getting anywhere close to what the first one did. I remember vividly how John Carter was marketed into oblivion back in 2012 and people simply didn’t care.
 

We live in an age that every other week we get the hot new shiny piece of entertainment, mostly from streaming. The world today is simply way too different than 2009, and most of all, unlike the MCU or Star Wars, the conditions for a perfect storm for Avatar 2 was never there. Marketing the hell out of it wouldn’t help, what it needed to blow up is the kind of hype for Maverick on steroids, and correct me if I’m wrong but Maverick was far bigger in North America than pretty much anywhere else, so even bigger than that. Spider-Man: No Way Home had the build up of not just a very successful Spider-Man trilogy, but literally 20 years of Spider-Man mythology, you just can’t compete with that kind of build up.

 

What Avatar actually needs is to people to care. Not about the spectacle, because today spectacle is easy and abundant, to be honest, Jimbo isn’t competing with other franchises, but everything: streaming, games, social media, etc. For Avatar sequels stop being diminishing returns, people need to care about the story. Will they? Exposing the story in trailers wouldn’t make that happen. What Disney and Cameron need to hope is that people will connect with the story, so it can create a build up for its sequels. Cameron simply took too damn long for a sequel, and if he was waiting for better 3D tech, it’s just not there yet to replicate the novelty of the first one.

 

One thing the first Avatar had that Avatar 2 doesn't have is the perfect fish out of water protagonist—a miserable crippled soldier with no legs getting a chance at a second at life with a new body in a pretty Alien world getting taught by the chief's daughter who he eventually gets to bag with a huge action finale, all while acting as technical showcase for 3D/CGI.  Avatar 1 was like designed in a lab to make as much money as possible.  And even though Avatar 1 had a bare bones screenplay, its way more focused and efficient in its storytelling and I believe pacing is one of the most absolute important things for great WOM/legs.

[ZattMurdock]

15 minutes ago, krla said:

Did they forget to market it to white people?

 

"Can we split this into 4 films?"

As a mixed race South American, few films exhale MURICA and whiteness than either Maverick or Avatar, either of them. And I say this as a MCU nerd, former Captain America hater turned into a fan after the MCU. I didn’t check the demo break ups, but I’d imagine that this is very much an white people endeavor, just like Black Panther is a black people fare - also don’t even get me started with Namor, Coogler made me love my most hated Marvel character of all time and see myself represented with the way they linked him to Talocan instead of Atlantis. I need a Namor film to happen asap, way before whatever the Avengers and the X-Men are doing.

[DC Rich]

32 minutes ago, Brainbug said:

 

I mean maybe hes watching Way of Water a bunch of times in a row?

 

He's going for the record.  With that run time though, we won't see him until February. 

[Cap]

13 minutes ago, Alligator Zatt said:

What Avatar actually needs is to people to care.

Okay, but how do get people to care other than to market the movie and expose them more to the property? That is the point of marketing.

[Nikostar]

7 minutes ago, Gopher said:

A 140/560 domestic run would've been seen as a huge win two months ago, and a higher gross retention than the followups to the other highest grossers of all time (Force Awakens, Black Panther, Avengers) had...

True. This is why people kept saying stop over hyping things.

[Menor the Destroyer]

2 minutes ago, Alligator Zatt said:

As a mixed race South American, few films exhale MURICA and whiteness than either Maverick or Avatar, either of them. And I say this as a MCU nerd, former Captain America hater turned into a fan after the MCU. I didn’t check the demo break ups, but I’d imagine that this is very much an white people endeavor, just like Black Panther is a black people fare - also don’t even get me started with Namor, Coogler made me love my most hated Marvel character of all time and see myself represented with the way they linked him to Talocan instead of Atlantis. I need a Namor film to happen asap, way before whatever the Avengers and the X-Men are doing.

Few films exhale MURICA more than Avatar, this is clearly why Avatar is an incredibly OS-heavy franchise?...

[ZattMurdock]

3 minutes ago, Reddroast said:

While that is true to a degree.... The reason star wars has remained a pop culture monolith for 45 years is doing all secondary marketing by tv, novels, and video games.

Not just that, the characters were incredibly liked and well fleshed out throughout decades. I love Cameron and Avatar is a beast, but his baby very much still is T-800.

 

Actually here is a pitch for Cameron - no idea if it’s possible but hey Disney owns both - Cameron Cinematic Universe. Bring me the T-800 to Pandora or something, that could be cool.

[BluKyberCrystal]

1 hour ago, upriser7 said:

Lets say A2 slightly underperforms at box-office vs pre-release expectations and ends up at $1.5B-1.8B but if the WOM is very positive, that should set up things well for A3 right ? I'd expect A3 to open better than A2...also you won't have that 13 year gap for A3 like we had for A2 and very likely little impact of covid during end of 2024.

Is a smaller gap actually helpful? Isn't a big part of Avatar's thing, it's novelty? The more there are, the less it has. A two year gap actually feels like a problem. It could open higher, but do worse overall.

[ZattMurdock]

9 minutes ago, Cap said:

Okay, but how do get people to care other than to market the movie and expose them more to the property? That is the point of marketing.

Cross media marketing. But for that your characters need to be likable. No one can tell me that the average people care more about Jake Sully than T-800, never mind Luke, Han, Grogu, Mandalorian, etc.. Like I’ve said, Cameron not allowing others to play on his sandbox and evolving that world is his fault. I don’t need a sequel for Inception but Cobb is far more memorable than Jake. Hell Tenet is Nolan at his Nolanest and even the Protagonist is more memorable than Jake. 
 

Some characters and mythologies for one reason or another simply connect more with the audience conscious. Avatar wasn’t that, it was all about the spectacle. How you can compete with spectacle if we have all sort of media bombarding us with spectacle 24-7? More cgi isn’t enough, it’s the story. And you can’t do that if you have an ‘auteur’ that doesn’t like to share his most precious toy. 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Alligator Zatt

[redfirebird2008]

17 minutes ago, Gopher said:

A 140/560 domestic run would've been seen as a huge win two months ago, and a higher gross retention than the followups to the other highest grossers of all time (Force Awakens, Black Panther, Avengers) had...

Wonder what that looks like with ticket price inflation from 13 years ago. 

[ZattMurdock]

8 minutes ago, Menor Reborn said:

Few films exhale MURICA more than Avatar, this is clearly why Avatar is an incredibly OS-heavy franchise?...

It’s the impression I get. 

[grey ghost]

43 minutes ago, chaos said:

3 or 4 Billions are probably not happening, but one thing is kind of a lock.:  3 out of the 4 Top Ranking BO World Wide ranks will be James Cameron Movies.  Somewhere between Titanic and the Marvel Abomination (I Think) ?

WOM is insane here..

 

 

Not a lock at all.