Avatar (the movie) and its Sequels

[LittleBuford]

There was obviously a vocal contingent who like to put down things that are popular, just to be contrarian, and that was certainly a rallying cry.

A movie doesn't become the highest grossing of all time without any impact or anyone not liking it. I enjoyed the first and watched it at home many times, but I won't deny it has a basic story and the runtime was a bit bloated.

So there's some truth to notion IMO. It's a movie series about spectacle first and foremost, with story and characters being less important. We talked about why it didn't have a blockbuster opening weekend, but it wasn't hard to get tickets, even for the "best" experiences. People weren't dying to see it the same way a Star Wars or Avengers movie is a draw.

I'll see part 3 because I know it will be another fun experience with a script good enough to hold my attention. Do I care what happens to what's his face or what's her face or what resource the humans will be after this time? Not so much. Avatarland wasn't a must see like Galaxy's Edge was. I doubt I'd read a tie-in novel.

Again, I don’t think the “no cultural impact” claims were necessarily (or even mainly) coming from a place of criticism. Many people looked down their noses at Titanic, but I doubt anyone would seriously question its extraordinary cultural impact. For whatever reason(s), Avatar did seem to leave a different sort of mark from other smash hits, and your post does a good job of suggesting why this may have been. The spectacle is very exciting in the moment, but it isn’t necessarily something one contemplates or recalls much in the aftermath.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

What are people’s thoughts on the “no cultural impact” characterisation? It seemed a convincing enough claim after the first film, but the success of the second leads to wonder whether we were using the wrong criteria to measure impact (lack of memes, forgettability of the characters’ names, etc.). Or is it really possible for a movie—and now franchise—to do spectacularly well at the box office and then sort of fade into cultural oblivion until the next instalment comes along?

"Fandom culture" is dominated by 18 to 30 year olds who are way too online. Avatar's base isn't that.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The Avatar movies holds the record of being the only franchise to have two movies in the top 10 of all time.

Huh? The Marvel Cinematic Universe has 2, 5, 6, and 9.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Huh? The Marvel Cinematic Universe has 2, 5, 6, and 9.

I was also slightly confused

 

[MisterPenguin]

The Avatar movies holds the record of being the only franchise to have two movies in the top 10 of all time. And part three comes out in 2024.

Huh? The Marvel Cinematic Universe has 2, 5, 6, and 9.

Indeed, if you look at Domestic Box Office:

Even if don't consider all of the MCU as one franchise, the two Avenger movies certainly qualify. And the MCU as a whole, ranks 2, 3, 6, 7, and 10.

As for global Box Office...

The MCU is 2, 5, 6, 10.

Now, if James Cameron has an Earthling visitor to Pandora whose ancestor survived the Titanic...

 

[Ghost93]

Now, if James Cameron has an Earthling visitor to Pandora whose ancestor survived the Titanic...

Avatar 3 will have an end credits scene where Jack Dawson — who has been frozen and preserved for 250+ years — wakes up on Pandora.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

PSA: The great leonopteryx is not called "Toruk Makto." He's just Toruk. Jake Sully is Toruk Makto.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

 

[MisterPenguin]

PSA: The great leonopteryx is not called "Toruk Makto." He's just Toruk. Jake Sully is Toruk Makto.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

I thought he was the Kwisatz Haderach?

 

[DKampy]

"Fandom culture" is dominated by 18 to 30 year olds who are way too online. Avatar's base isn't that.

This 100%…Avatar reach is across multi generational including the older generation… it is partly the reason it has longer legs…older adults don’t go opening weekend( same reason Maverick had legs)For example my 70 something parents have not seen it yet, but they plan to and they never go the theater

You also don’t have 1 smaller group of people that debate like Star Wars or marvel and have to see it opening weekend because the interest is spread across a wider swath of the general population… getting people out who only go the movies 1 or 2 times a year

 

[Phroobar]

I'm rewatching the original. I've noticed it feels a lot less colorful than WoW that is probably because a lot of it is at night. It looks lower resolution since it was done fourteen years ago. There are more physical sets that seem to blend better. WoW seemed to not always blend the live action human running around the CG scene. In the original, they seemed to use CG models for regular humans in the CG scenes.

I was trying to figure out where teenage Sigourney Weaver came from. There was the scene where the Na'vi try to transfer her mind into the Avatar body but fail. I assume that Avatar body is still alive even without the paired human. I guess the Force created a baby and transferred Sigourney's mind into it.

It also seems Miles' mother was not in Avatar but came from a comic book. There is no character named Paz Socorro

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I was trying to figure out where teenage Sigourney Weaver came from. There was the scene where the Na'vi try to transfer her mind into the Avatar body but fail. I assume that Avatar body is still alive even without the paired human.

She was clearly conceived by Eywa. Kiri = Jesus.

I guess the Force created a baby and transferred Sigourney's mind into it.

Grace's mind isn't in Kiri. Kiri is her own person. Not like Quaritch and his avatar self.

 

[Phroobar]

She was clearly conceived by Eywa. Kiri = Jesus.


Grace's mind isn't in Kiri. Kiri is her own person. Not like Quaritch and his avatar self.

I assume during that ceremony something went wrong.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I assume during that ceremony something went wrong.

I'd phrase it as "during that ceremony, something unexpected happened." I don't think it was "wrong," I think it was Eywa's intent. But Kiri is her own person, she's not a new body that inherited Grace's consciousness.

 

[Prince-1]

Huh? The Marvel Cinematic Universe has 2, 5, 6, and 9.

In my defense, I was on vacation when I wrote that and I was quite high.

 

[Disney Analyst]

This 100%…Avatar reach is across multi generational including the older generation… it is partly the reason it has longer legs…older adults don’t go opening weekend( same reason Maverick had legs)For example my 70 something parents have not seen it yet, but they plan to and they never go the theater

You also don’t have 1 smaller group of people that debate like Star Wars or marvel and have to see it opening weekend because the interest is spread across a wider swath of the general population… getting people out who only go the movies 1 or 2 times a year

My in-laws only went this past weekend, taking the age 70+ grandparents with them.

They all loved it btw.

 

[Phroobar]

I'd phrase it as "during that ceremony, something unexpected happened." I don't think it was "wrong," I think it was Eywa's intent. But Kiri is her own person, she's not a new body that inherited Grace's consciousness.

Makes me wonder what the Na'vi did with the sleeping avatar body. Wouldn't they see it as an abomination? Would they kill it or feed it and take care of it? I would assume the human scientists took it. It got to be in one of those comic books.

Could it be Grace's consciousness reborn? That could be interesting.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Makes me wonder what the Na'vi did with the sleeping avatar body. Wouldn't they see it as an abomination? Would they kill it or feed it and take care of it? I would assume the human scientists took it. It got to be in one of those comic books.

They show this in The Way of Water. When the kids go into the science building near the beginning, the body is floating in a bacta tank and Kiri climbs on top and talks to it.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Please use the SPOILER thread for spoiler discussions...

SPOILERS: Avatar 2: The Way of Water (Dec 16, 2022)

The plot needs to move in a very different direction in the next film. They can't just do different settings and have the same plot. There needs to be a brand new enemy and, maybe, eventually have the Navii work WITH the humans to eradicate that enemy. Perhaps Spider is the key to bringing both...

forums.wdwmagic.com

 

[BrianLo]

What are people’s thoughts on the “no cultural impact” characterisation? It seemed a convincing enough claim after the first film, but the success of the second leads to wonder whether we were using the wrong criteria to measure impact (lack of memes, forgettability of the characters’ names, etc.). Or is it really possible for a movie—and now franchise—to do spectacularly well at the box office and then sort of fade into cultural oblivion until the next instalment comes along?

I think one can make an argument that Avatar has not yet gone sufficiently trans-media, but that is not an argument that it has no cultural impact. Avatar still remains a young franchise, had one lone brand deposit in a decade. The fact Pandora in AK is incredibly popular was dismissed as simply just being ‘well done’, which it is. But is the one case example of going transmedia.

Its most lasting impact was theatrical equipment, we had the 3D wave, which unfortunately people sort of blame Avatar for. Many pretenders and few that really lived up to the experience.

I think our resident Halloween costume tracker, who has beat that drum for ages, misunderstood that Avatar really wasn’t a children’s franchise, nor very easy to cosplay. Generationally no one who was a child was remotely alive for that movie anyways, nor had another franchise deposit really occurred.

I do think what Avatar lacked though was a steward of the franchise beyond Cameron. Never doubt Disney’s ability to expand a franchise post theatrically. Fox sort of dropped the ball. In Avatars defense the fact it was even allowed to go quiet for a decade after it’s box office is more of a refreshing difference with most modern franchises and I think that was misconstrued by many as a failure.

 

[DCBaker]

"The 3x Oscar winning filmmaker also clarified statements he made to GQ magazine: He told them back in November that the sequel would need to be the third or fourth highest-grossing movie in history just to “break even”. Those pics all grossed over $2 billion worldwide.

Cameron told Wallace, “I never actually gave it a number. I said it would has to be among the highest-grossing films in history and somebody else applied that number and it got picked up. The number is actually less.”

Avatar: The Way of Water stands at $1.54 billion worldwide, having just passed Top Gun: Maverick as the top-grossing release of 2022. It’s also the 9th grossing movie ever and the second top grossing film of the pandemic after Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.9 billion)

“It looks like with the momentum that the film has now that we’ll easily pass our break even in the next few days, so it looks like I can’t wiggle out of this and I’m gonna have to do these other sequels,” Cameron told Wallace. “I know what I’m going to be doing the next six or seven years.”

Cameron also said about the sequel’s break even, “The point is we’re going to be okay. I’m sure that we’ll have a discussion soon with with the top folks at Disney about the game plan going forward for Avatar 3, which is already in the can – we’ve already captured and photographed the whole film so we’re in extended post-production to do all that CG magic. And then Avatar 4 and 5 are both written. We even have some of 4 in the can. We’ve begun a franchise at this point. We’ve begun a saga that can now play out over multiple films.”

Avatar 3 is currently scheduled for release on Dec. 20, 2024, Avatar 4 on Dec. 18, 2026 and Avatar 5 on Dec. 22, 2028."

James Cameron Says ‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ Will Break Even, Paving Way For Future Sequels Release

'Avatar: The Way Of Water' To Break Even Per James Cameron, Paving Way For Sequels

deadline.com