Is 'Avatar' still relevant in today's film landscape?
Posted Friday, June 19, 2015 at 5:01 PM Central
Last updated Friday, June 19, 2015 at 5:02 PM Central
by John Couture
This week's huge opening from Jurassic World got us thinking. In the last three years, we've seen two films surpass $200 million in their opening weekend and four others that brought in north of $150 in their debut frame, but no one has come close to sniffing Avatar's total domestic box office record of $760 million.
In fact, The Avengers' $623 million is over $35 million less than Titanic's take in second place. The anecdotal evidence would seem to indicate that films these days are blowing their box office load early and just don't enjoy the staying power of older films. Why is that?
Well, part of that could be due to the fact that only two of the next ten films occupying top slots on the all-time box office list are truly original, Star Wars and E.T. Sequels tend to have front-loaded box office business as their audiences already know about the property and don't need the help of word-of-mouth to build the film's buzz. Another reason could be how drastically the film business has changed since 2009 when Avatar was released.
Since then, the marketplace has been dominated by comic book films, sequels and dystopian or fantasy films targeted to younger audiences. With that in mind, I think it's a fair question to ask if Avatar is still relevant in today's market place even as the film's three sequels are set to start unreeling in cinema's in 2017.
Today's cinematic environment is all about striking while the iron is hot. Many times sequels will be greenlit before a film even hits theaters. With Avatar, they seem to be going in the other direction. James Cameron is taking his sweet old time and Fox is seemingly being patient with the director, even with news this week that Avatar 2's release date will be pushed back again to Christmas 2017.
The three sequels are supposed to be filmed concurrently, so that once they are done they should release in sequential years, but is it going to be too late at that point? By the time Christmas 2017 rolls around, it will have been 8 years since the release of the original film. For comparison's sake, three Star Wars films will have been released between now and the release of Avatar 2. Will audiences still tolerate tall blue aliens?
Back in late 2013, it was reported that the budgets of the three sequels will be at least $415 million. That's a ton of dough for three films that might ultimately flop at the box office. You want to talk about making a gamble with your future. But it seems that the company line from Fox is completely positive.
This week also featured a shakeup at 21st Century Fox where Rupert Murdoch, a staunch supporter of Cameron and backer of the first, riskier Avatar, stepped aside and relinquished control of the media corporation to his sons. And yet, on the same day that the Murdoch news hit, a Fox exec reaffirmed the company's support of the Avatar sequels.
A lot has changed in the marketplace since 2009 and a lot can change in the next two and a half years, so it bears repeating: will the Avatar be relevant in today's theatrical marketplace?