AVATAR 2 and 3 due in 2014 and 2015 – don’t hold your breath
Oct 28
… or you’ll go blue in the face. Ahem.
Everyone’s favourite megalomaniacal tyrant is just about ready to knuckle down and start writing two sequels to the highest-grossing movie in the history of movies, grosses, and movie grosses. So when is Number Two due? 2014. Yikes
2014 looks like a fake date from a science fiction book. Won’t we all be grown up and married with kids and / or retired by then? Will anyone even remember Avatar that far into the future? Only time — lots of time — will tell.
As for the sequels’ subject matter, that remains up in the air until the writing actually takes place. Writer / director / producer / Almighty Creator of the Universe James Cameron wants each sequel to be “self-contained” but also to fit into some kind of greater narrative arc. There’s been talk of moving to a different primary setting — a different moon, or the ocean, or something — but again, it’s all up in the air for now.
I don’t think I’ve ever been aware of a movie this far ahead of release. (Star Wars and Harry Potter don’t count, because they came regularly, without 5-year gaps between instalments.) Is this the beginning of something special in the history of cinema, or is this the first step on a long and exhausting road of marketing and publicity? You be the judge.
Trailer: AVATAR Extended Collector’s Edition Fan-Service Extravaganza Blu-Ray / DVD
Oct 07
3 discs. 3 versions of the film. 45 minutes of deleted scenes. Several hours of making-of featurettes. Neat packaging. It almost makes me wish I was a fan of Avatar.
I like that James Cameron‘s vision of future-Earth has been reinstated for this release, because its absence hurt the theatrical cut of the film. The making-of docos also pique my interest; it’s always fascinating to see a master at work. Then I remember that the movie is mostly a generic cartoon about blue people and then I wonder why I was interested in the first place.
Get some more blue alien lovin’ on 16 November 2010, on Blu-Ray and DVD. Go here for an exhaustive list of features.
Turns out that AVATAR re-release didn’t do too well
Aug 30
With the DVD release mere months old, another DVD release a couple of months down the track, and an already congested sampling of 3D films currently in show (Step Up 3D, Piranha 3D, Toy Story 3D), it shouldn’t come as too much of a shock that a lot of people skipped return trip to Pandora.
Avatar managed to drum up $4 million over the past weekend, a paltry amount compared to its original $2.7 billion run. It only played on 800 screens, though, and managed a pretty-good $5000 per-screen average. But what happened to all those people that bragged about having seen Avatar 17 times? The folk that bought the DVD and Blu-Ray on opening day, the folk that dragged everyone they knew to go and see the movie, the folk that flooded the internet with hyperbolic fanboyism? Shouldn’t all those funs have bumped up Avatar‘s re-release gross?
My theory is that those people represent the vocal minority. Avatar didn’t make $2.7 billion the first time around from fanatical repeat-viewings; it made it from one-off punters, people curious to see what all the fuss was about, and from people who heard the movie was the second coming of Christ. Those people, casual moviegoers, probably don’t care to see a movie twice in the same year; if they do, they’ve probably already got the DVD and don’t want to have to shell out $20 plus silly glasses to see a movie they already own again.The $4 million, in this theory, comes mostly from those vocal but outnumbered fans, and not from the bulk of Avatar‘s core audience.
Well, that’s just my theory. Maybe if it had released on more than 800 American screens Avatar would have seen a greater return.
The Avatar re-release is in cinemas right now. Go see it quick, because it probably won’t last long.
James Cameron now speaks for NASA; also, AVATAR DVD re-release information
Aug 25
Turns out NASA thinks James Cameron is something of a big deal. He’s now the public face of the organisation, and has appeared in a series of commercials advertising the good work NASA does. People seem to have lost interest in NASA (and astronomy in general) over the past fifty years, so hopefully Jim can do something to reinvigorate the public imagination. Check out one of the ads here:
In more annoying news, the forthcoming Avatar Special Edition DVD will apparently come with 16 minutes of additional footage. This far outstrips the theatrical re-release’s paltry 9 minutes, and puts fans in the uncomfortable position of choosing whether to double-, triple-, or quadruple-dip. I was moderately interested in seeing an extended Avatar, to see if it would magically fix all of the film’s problems (ha!), but now I might just wait till the Special Edition DVD instead.
And, while we’re on the topic, here’s a neat video demonstrating the technology behind Avatar‘s revolutionary camera system. I have no idea what a pound is, but apparently the camera only weighs 28 of them. Is it a Pound, as in the currency? Or perhaps a measurement of the pressure exerted by a hungry bear when it pounds on a beehive, desperate for the sticky nutrients within. I may never know.
Avatar invades cinemas again tomorrow (26 August 2010) here; US folk will have to wait till the 27th. The Special Edition DVD is due in November. A 3D DVD is due next year, too.
AVATAR re-release teaser is short, sweet, full of dinosaurs
Aug 14
With Avatar‘s re-release less than a fortnight away, Fox has started rolling out the blue stuff, trying to get people to come back to Pandora one more time. I’m pretty sure the trailer I saw, attached to The Expendables, was slightly different from this one (it had similar droning music to the original Avatar trailer, and ran longer than this one), but this YouTube-ified teaser is sure to do the trick just as well.
What’s new in this trailer? I’m no expert, but I think there’s some new shots of stampeding dinosaurs, and something seems to be on fire towards the last half; neat. Dollar-Sign Jimbo (er, James Cameron) reckons the nine minutes inserted into Avatar‘s already punishing run-time is all good stuff: extra battle footage, more shots of Pandoran flora and fauna, and, crucially, an extended love scene. Fantastic.
Avatar: The Enlengthening is due on 26 August 2010 here; 27 August in the US and UK.
OPINIONS COUNT