Avatar didn't quite make the top all-time gross box office, only $ 20M behind "The Dark Knight," but still $95M behind the champ, "Titanic." I think that news release I read was predicting it would overtake "The Dark Knight" as it's going to be at least another month for it to start nibbling at Titanic's heels and, adjusted for inflation, pull ahead of "Gone With the Wind" and "Star Wars."
Domestic: $505,067,000 31.3%
+ Foreign: $1,110,401,000 68.7%
= Worldwide: $1,615,468,000
1 Titanic Par. $600,788,188 1997
2 The Dark Knight WB $533,345,358 2008
3 Avatar Fox $505,067,000 2009
Quote:LOS ANGELES - "Avatar" may be too popular for its own good in China.
The communist nation's state-run movie distributor, China Film Group, unexpectedly began pulling the blockbuster science-fiction picture from 1,628 2-D screens this week in favor of a biography of the ancient philosopher Confucius.
Paul Hanneman, co-president of international distribution for 20th Century Fox, the movie's distributor, confirmed the move, which the studio learned about Monday evening.
According to the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, the switch was made at the urging of propaganda officials who are concerned that "Avatar" is taking too much market share from Chinese films and drawing unwanted attention to the sensitive issue of forced evictions.
Millions of Chinese have been uprooted to make way for high-rise buildings and government infrastructure projects in the fast-growing country. In "Avatar," human colonists try to demolish the village of an alien race to obtain a precious energy source buried under it.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/920/story/1034148.html?storylink=omni_popular
it amazes me that 35 years later we still hear about how capitalism will reform Chinese Communism.
@hawkeye10,
China certainly isn't broke and the government could subsidize sci-fi films -- whether they have the CGI technology is another story. A collaboration with a US film company could help but where will they get the actual story material? For a supposed secular society who are fighting their way into a modern world of technology, sci-fi is, to my knowledge, practically non-existent. China has always fascinated with it's exotic culture and incredibly convoluted history and there's been a few fantasy films but sci-fi has been left in the dust. Avatar would be extremely popular but I think the messages, rather obvious to us, would be viewed as dangerous propaganda by the Chinese government. Even though the message directly takes on the treatment of Chinese immigrants in the U.S. in the wild, wild west, not to mention the European invasions in their history. There's almost a parallel to the Boxer Rebellion.
World champ and on the way to becoming unreachable, except by James Cameron?
1 Avatar Fox $1,858.9 $555.0 29.9% $1,303.9 70.1% 2009
2 Titanic Par. $1,843.2 $600.8 32.6% $1,242.4 67.4% 1997
3 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King NL $1,119.1 $377.0 33.7% $742.1 66.3% 2003
4 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest BV $1,066.2 $423.3 39.7% $642.9 60.3% 2006
5 The Dark Knight WB $1,001.9 $533.3 53.2% $468.6 46.8% 2008
6 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone WB $974.7 $317.6 32.6% $657.2 67.4% 2001
7 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End BV $961.0 $309.4 32.2% $651.6 67.8% 2007
8 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix WB $938.2 $292.0 31.1% $646.2 68.9% 2007
9 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince WB $934.0 $302.0 32.3% $632.0 67.7% 2009
10 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers NL $925.3 $341.8 36.9% $583.5 63.1% 2002^
@Lightwizard,
Lightwizard wrote:World champ and on the way to becoming unreachable, except by James Cameron?
Amazing.
Do you think this success will serve to improve the frequency and quality of future sci-fi movies?
@rosborne979,
At least it's a standard in technical quality -- whether anybody is up to adapting some of the great sci-fi novels (or even short stories through novelettes) that have been hung out to dry and still draw an audience to at least make a modest profit (which is what Cameron had convinced himself to accept if it was the outcome) remains to be seen. They apparently believe Phillip K. Dick is the only sci-fi author who has authored anything film-able, other than the meager attempt at making something out of Isaac Azimov's most popular short stories and novels, excepting, of course, the Foundation series. That would make a better mini-series than a three hour film. The Hollywood machine already knows sci-fi sells, even mediocrity, but are they brave enough to tackle "The Demolished Man," "Mission of Gravity," or "Ringworld?"
@Lightwizard,
Lightwizard wrote:At least it's a standard in technical quality -- whether anybody is up to adapting some of the great sci-fi novels (or even short stories through novelettes) that have been hung out to dry and still draw an audience to at least make a modest profit remains to be seen.
Actually, I wasn't really thinking about whether Avatar would encourage more sci-fi with 3D. I was just hoping that the success of any Sci-Fi film might encourage the production of more of them, hopefully with some real Sci-Fi plots.
Personally, I don't find the 3D presentation interesting enough to attract me to the film it that's all it's got. I enjoyed District 9 more than Avatar even though Avatar was a very pretty film to see. But I may be in the minority. Since Avatar had a weak story and still did phenomenally well, I'm guessing that many people like it simply for the visuals.
Strange as it may seem to you, many of us liked the story.
@Brandon9000,
Quote:Strange as it may seem to you, many of us liked the story.
A simple and oft told story may not be "weak", it may just as well be one the resonates with a lot of people. Cameron has been clear that he needed this movie to be seen by a lot of people, it would have been stupid of him to take a chance on a story line that was not a proven winner.
In any case, there is no arguing with results. Cameron was right as proven by how well this movie has done.
@rosborne979,
I liked District 9 better too.
@maporsche,
maporsche wrote:I liked District 9 better too.
We seem to be in the minority.
@rosborne979,
I think not. As far a plot and characters go I will pick District 9 hands over feet every time.
But if you are going for 3-D packed eye candy, I have to go with Avatar, and for that reason only.
@rosborne979,
Well consider me a third in this alleged Minority Opinion.
District 9 is far greater than
Avatar.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I rented "District 9" and stopped watching it after about 40 minutes, because I found it to be an incredibly trite and hackneyed story about how the ugly humans discriminated against the aliens. The story of the ethnic group in control discriminating against some minority has also been told in the movies a heck of a lot and this one wasn't very subtle.
Quote:(Entertainment Weekly) -- Well, Mel Gibson has joined Denzel Washington and Dwayne Johnson on the list of stars that couldn't stand up to "Avatar's" box-office might. The film on track to cross Titanic's domestic gross of $600 million in mere days took the top spot again this weekend, falling just 14 percent, which is a smaller drop-off than last weekend. Earning an additional $30 million, "Avatar's" domestic total now stands at $594 million.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/31/boxoffice.ew/index.html?hpt=T2
Amazing. I noticed that my local Imax sold out at least one showing on Sat. Avatar has to get out on March 4 for Alice in Wonderland, which I am certainly going to see. Looks like Avatar will be solid till closing day.
@rosborne979,
rosborne979 wrote:Also (and purists will kill me for this, but...) I liked the original cut better than the director's cut because I liked the narration by Harrison Ford and I liked some of the background music which was omitted in the Director's Cut.
I was just using Google to see if there was a Blade Runner 2049 thread yet. Apparently not.
Anyway, you're OK with the purists. The later revisions are abominations, just as horrendous as the later revisions of Star Wars.
The narration is sort of a double-edged sword. It has both benefits and drawbacks. However, the later revisions have worse problems. They keep trying to add in greater and greater hints that Deckard is himself a replicant and just doesn't know it. That may sound like a cool twist to the story, but it completely undermines the underriding theme where a human comes to see the robot as good and his fellow humans as the bad guys.
There are actually at least seven official versions of Blade Runner:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versions_of_Blade_Runner
Personally my two favorite versions are "the international version in high definition but regraded to the colors from the Criterion LaserDisc" and the fan-edit "the version you've never seen before".
@tsarstepan,
I like Cameron and he makes great movies, but shut the f up. All I can tell him is "make better movies!"
Until then, I, and so many others, will continue choosing what we want to watch.
