Fearless Forecast - 'Avatar' Not Breaking Any Records

It is highly unlikely that Avatar will do groundbreaking business this weekend. I'll put somewhere in the $80 million range out there here at the start and tell you why it may not make more. For starters, I'm unconvinced that it has incredibly wide appeal, especially at the beginning. I hear comparisons to Titanic, but that's not a well-informed argument. There's almost nothing these movies have in common, aside from the director and the running time. Titanic faced virtually no competition for months, got another spike three months into its run with the Oscars, and remained in theaters for nearly eight months after that. Those conditions no longer exist for any film. They're on DVD in four months (which could move up to three months if the studios get their way), there's a new $100 million movie released about every other week on average, and there are more entertainment options all the way around than there were a decade ago. Yes, but The Dark Knight, you say. Granted. But that didn't beat Titanic, it took ten years for a movie to get within $150 million of Titanic, and - here's the real clincher - Dark Knight made $300 million in less than two weeks and didn't have enough road ahead of it to double that amount in five months. That should tell you how hard it will be for Avatar to be in that conversation. Plus, Titanic was a love story centered around one of the biggest events of the 20th century; we all know what that is going in. Avatar is a film about a foreign planet and blue people. Yes, you say, but Star Wars. I'll grant you that, too. Star Wars, though, had the luxury of living in a time without a well-coordinated industry-wide model for building blockbusters; that film and Close Encounters made over $300 million each in 1977. Saturday Night Fever, the number four movie of that year, only made $58 million. Sure, there isn't another blockbuster to worry about at this moment, but next week, James Cameron will have Sherlock Holmes to deal with, and it should snatch up a considerable amount of its audience. But that's next weekend. Why else don't I think Avatar breaks the bank over the next few days? It's almost three hours long, which is OK if you're the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie or Lord of the Rings, but again, this is a much bigger unknown to wide audiences. They don't know the characters' names and they have very little familiarity with the cast. It's also the last weekend before Christmas, which means people will just have other things to do. I'm also tying a reluctance to accept 3-D into my equation. For kiddie movies, it's fine, and parents understand that. But don't be surprised if this film performs pretty well in weekends two and three because the opening weekend crowd convinced people on the fence that this is a miraculous 3-D experience, and wearing glasses for that long doesn't hurt your eyes or anything. But it will still do good business this weekend, and it should have a robust run through January if it's as good as (most of) the critics say. However, it will be lucky to do $300 million in the US. Only five movies have achieved it in two years, and Iron Man is the only self-starter of that group. The Top Five:
1 - Avatar ($78 million)
2 - The Princess and the Frog ($15.5 million)
3 - The Blind Side ($11 million)
4 - Did You Hear About the Morgans? ($8 million)
5 - Invictus ($6 million)

Comments

[MRPigg]

I agree with your analysis that it won't shatter any records, but I think you need to factor into account that it will do a heck of a lot of IMAX business, which will up it's take considerably. This is the first feature length blockbuster that I am actually going to go out of my way to see the way the director wanted me to see it in the large format, and I suspect that a lot of curiosity seekers will do the same thing.

[Get The Big Picture]

178 IMAX theaters at an extra $4 of $5 per ticket is not going to be that dramatic over the long haul. Even if they sell 500 tickets per theater at $12 each, that's only $1 million a showing. So...six million, eight million tops in one weekend. You also need to consider that Avatar is not in 4,000 theaters. It's between 3,300 and 3,500, or so I've read. That's significantly lower than it would need to be for a record run.

[MRPigg]

Yeah, I agree. I'm not arguing that it will set records. The point I was trying to make is that the numbers will be slightly skewed due to the wider release in specialized formats.

[Lengthy Johnson]

I think that Avtar has more general appeal than The Dark Knight.

The Dark Knight was basically a genre-movie for guys. It did however transcend all demographic lines due to the massive hype following the death of Heath Ledger.

Avatar has the lure of new technology that is interesting to everyone. It also has the strength of James Cameron's story-telling and character identification (who could identify with either Batman or the Joker?).

The Dark Knight is probably the most overrated movie in history and if Colin is right about Avatar, then it'll be the most underrated.

I do however agree with Ebert that Avatar is the closest thing to the phenomenon of the original Star Wars movie. A game changer that can only be enjoyed at the cinema.

[Carv]

Given that Transformers 2 was the hit of the year but also godawful, I think we can safely assume Transformers 2 will be the most overrated movie of the year, with New Moon a (dis)respectable second.

[W]

Lengthy, while I agree with the thoughts of Ebert, Dark Knight has much more appeal than Avatar. I think that statement is way off base. The Batman franchise has been around for a long time. There is no doubt that the death of Heath Ledger probably increased tickets sales and is the main reason for the record breaking opening weekend, it is hard to say the franchise has less mass appeal than Avatar. I think that statement is way off base. I have heard nothing but positive things about Avatar and don't want to take anything away from it, however, you need to look at it as a story. That story does not have mass appeal. Sorry.

[Lengthy Johnson]

Hello, dubyah (W)

Well, the Dark Knight Hardly had any story at all (as far as I could tell from four or five viewings).

I massively admire Chris Nolan for his pre-Batman work, but honestly the Batman-stuff, you can have it or lose it and it makes no difference whatsoever.

What Avatar has that Batman lacks is (for one) a strong female character. Rachel was just an extra in Batman Begins and the Dark Knight, while Sigouney and Zoe are essential to Avatar.

So. there. Public appeal for Avatar is doubled.

[Get The Big Picture]

Maybe not. Women aren't buying tickets, at least not yet:

http://bit.ly/5QXVes