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Avatar: The Way of Water whopping 12 films premiered last Friday in cinemas in US. There was also a revival: Avatar (2009), James Cameron's sci-fi flick that swept the box office around the world 13 years ago, was back on the big screen in preparation for the long-delayed release of Avatar: The Sense del agua, its sequel, on December 16.
Avatar has once again been the box office leader this weekend in our country with a collection of approximately 954,000 euros. Close to double the second classified, the horror premiere Smile at the edge of 544,000 euros according to data provided by ComScore. It will be necessary to see if the rest of the recently released titles have more luck in the days of the Film Festival.
The irrefutable interest that Avatar has aroused conveniently removed from the Disney+ streaming catalog weeks before the film re-release– bodes well for the revenue forecasts for Avatar: The Sense of Water this Christmas. Of course, this revival has also generated a curious confusion: some uninformed viewers went to theaters thinking that it was the sequel that had been released now, instead of the original 2009 film.
An attitude that, as reflected in Twitter messages, has been repeated in numerous rooms. According to these testimonies, in Latin America viewers of the Cinépolis chain even asked for the money back from the tickets when they found out about the movie for which they had bought them.
After 13 years, Avatar had a re-release in theaters this weekend, so that a whole new generation can enjoy it on the big screen and in 3D before the release of its sequel. But apparently this is causing problems with people asking for their money back because they have confused Avatar with Avatar 2.
Avatar caused a revolution in cinema, back in 2009, similar to the one caused by Star Wars at the time. She was the one who brought 3D movies back to theaters, and was responsible for starting the 3D TV craze. which then ended in fiasco.
With 2,847 million dollars grossed, Avatar is the highest grossing film in history. It surpasses Avengers: Endgame by 50 million dollars, but it will leave it behind again with the re-release in theaters. In some countries it was released on Friday, September 23, although in Spain it is available from September 30.
This revival of Avatar has been a huge box office success. It grossed $30 million on its first day in the United States alone, and in Spain it climbed straight to number one at the box office this weekend.
But this revival has not gone smoothly for everyone. Some viewers in Mexico walked out of the theater after ten minutes, asking for their money back. The reason? They confused Avatar with Avatar 2, which will be released on December 16.
Avatar changed everything in 2009. The highest-grossing movie of all time, which recently snatched the crown from Avengers: Endgame with one of the multiple re-releases that it has experienced these months of the coronavirus pandemic, will soon have a long-awaited sequel that is raising passions and expectations. The film directed by James Cameron, titled Avatar: The Sense of Water (Avatar: The Way of Water in English), will be released on December 16 in theaters around the world and will do so through the front door.
Avatar: The Sense of Water is a film that is destined to be an unprecedented box office success, one of those blockbusters that make an epoch and that mark a new stage in the cinematographic world. Its plot, as we already mentioned in our special, will be framed more than a decade after the events of the first film and will tell us the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri and their children) in Pandora.
Interestingly, the human son adopted by the Sullys will play a vital role in the plot, forcing us to make great sacrifices to save his family and his tribe with the help of the Metkayina clan, an ethnic group living in the planet's oceans and culturally different from the Na'vi who live in the jungles. Can Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) overcome their problems?.
The film has been shot with the best computer graphics techniques and crew imaginable, and in James Cameron's words, it will have the best 3D imaginable. "With the new Avatar movies, we're pushing those limits even further, with high dynamic range, high frame rate, higher resolution 3D," said the filmmaker behind Titanic. In other words, Avatar 2's technology will be groundbreaking with current standards, with UHD resolution in many cinemas, richer colors and contrast, HFR (high frame rate) of 60 frames per second and a more immersive 3D. In other words: it will be like traveling to Pandora for real.
But there is more. With a cast rounded out by Sigourney Weaver, Oona Chaplin, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis and Stephen Lang, Avatar: A Sense of Water hits theaters around the world on December 16, bringing us a long-awaited sequel by the respectable, But If everything is going well, James Cameron will continue with Avatar 3 on December 20, 2024, Avatar 4 on December 18, 2026 and Avatar 5 on December 22, 2028. Almost nothing.
Avatar 3 - December 20, 2024
Avatar 4 - December 18, 2026
Avatar 5 - December 22, 2028
There is desire for Avatar. If the revival of James Cameron's science fiction film has shown anything, it is that the public wants to return to Pandora. Either that, or they thought that the return to theaters of the 2009 film was the sequel, titled Avatar: The Sense of Water, will start the cataract of sequels that the filmmaker has prepared for the coming years.
But let's go first with the important thing: that is, the second film in the saga. Avatar: Sense of Water will be released in theaters on December 16. After suffering many delays and changes of course, Cameron promised that we would not end 2022 without returning to Pandora with Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña). That's how it will be, in what is expected to become the big Christmas blockbuster, the whole year and we'll see if what we've been through this century.
With an astronomical budget of 250 million dollars, the commercial expectations of Avatar: The sense of water are through the roof, but they are the kind of challenges that the director of Titanic thrives on. The expectation generated by the trailer and all the promotional materials for the film seem to be right.
Cristina has come to 'First Dates' in search of a man with whom to live life to the fullest and not stop doing things, but the last time she went to the cinema was to see 'Avatar' and she was clear that a man of English origin could not be her ideal man.
James is English but has been in Alicante for 34 years. He married his first Spanish girlfriend “she was my first love, we started dating at 16 and by 20 we were already married. He has a 28-year-old son and claims not to have a prototype of a woman, he has to be someone he likes and likes. Carlos Sobera has defined him as a romantic and has wished him “Good luck”.
Cristina, her date, defines herself as "a crack person, I'm very open, very crazy." She knows where she has to be at all times, but she is jovial and she likes to live life to the fullest. When she entered, Carlos Sobera asked her how good her English was and she gave him a “fatal” before meeting James.
Both have made a good impression, have asked about their professions and have sat down to dinner. Cristina did not like knowing that James had a girlfriend, got married and then had children, relationships with established bosses do not go with her. She assures that her love life has been like a box of chocolates and that she has had a little bit of everything.
The two are competitive and like sports, but on the subject of cinema and they have not coincided. Cristina has told James that she liked the movies, but that the last movie she went to see was 'Avatar'. James was freaked out because it's a movie from almost 20 years ago and if you like movies it's weird not being that long without going to see a movie.
Cristina has told him that she is self-defined and he hasn't fully understood what it is "it's a grandmother's custom". Among Cristina's hobbies are animals. She belongs to an animal association and is a great lover of them. James has told her that she also likes animals a lot, but she has told him that there were many things that had broken her when they were puppies and that as her owner he was "terrible" because she had a hard time maintaining her routines.
Whatever you read starting today, no one wants you to see Avatar on your mobile, neither the original nor the new Avatar, the sense of water, nor the other three installments (The Seed Bearer, The Rider of Tulkun and The Search for Eywa) that Disney, director James Cameron and producer Jon Landau have in their portfolio.
That the giant IMAX has bought a small Canadian Artificial Intelligence company that improves video playback on any platform and device (a small company that is not new to the market, has been offering its service to giants like Disney for some time, to offer its Mode IMAX on the Disney Plus platform, or Warner Media and has won several of those technical Emmys that you never pay attention to because they don't have red carpet glamour).
It doesn't mean that nobody now wants movies to be seen on mobile phones to the detriment of movie theaters (come on, they don't want you to wait for Avatar 2 to be released on Disney Plus to see it), only that when you go to see it in the mobile, on a tablet and on the television in your home have the best possible experience. The purchase has been misunderstood, we understand that consciously, by many means, but since it has generated an intense debate, Esquire is here to put spoon.
Would you see Avatar on your mobile? The difference between seeing the original Avatar movie in a 3D theater versus seeing it on a television is so overwhelming that there should be no debate. Avatar is not in vain the highest grossing film in history. It's no coincidence that it has grossed $2.905 million worldwide since it was released on December 18, 2009, and that moviegoers flock to theaters every time a commercial iteration of the original is proposed.
In addition to the original release in 2019, a special edition was released in 2010, and has been re-released three times in theaters. And I think that's the best argument. That Avatar, or any movie, can be seen on mobile does not mean that they have to be seen on mobile, much less that nobody thinks of mobiles to watch any movie. But there are films that lose their meaning when they leave the theaters. The three new installments in the saga, Avatar: The Bearer of Seeds, The Rider of Tulkun and The Search for Eywa, rely precisely on improvements in technology to improve the experience.
The Avatar product outside of a theater doesn't make sense. Nor does it make sense as a series, not because narratively the characters cannot be further developed (although it is an infinitely more closed universe than the current great film franchises proposed by Marvel and Star Wars), but because visually it would be another product. That it can be successful, I'm not saying no, but it would be a completely different product. The only thing that Disney needed to move forward was to know the interest of the viewers.
The best proof of this is that Disney Plus has withdrawn Avatar from its catalog and has re-released it in theaters in order to warm up engines for the revival of the franchise with Avatar, the sense of water (premiere in theaters on December 17).
More than a commercial movement, it has been an experiment: how many times are viewers willing to go to the cinema to see Avatar? How many new viewers who did not see Avatar in 2009 are willing to see it now in a movie theater when they have had the opportunity to see it on the streaming platform?.
How many who have already seen it on the platform may want to go see it in a movie theater to see it in its original format? Apart from all the viewers who thought they were going to see Avatar 2 instead of the original, the film, which was re-released between September 22 and September 30, has raised 59 million dollars (one million of these euros , eye, in Spain). When the special edition was released in 2010, it grossed $44 million (which, taking inflation into account, would be $59.7 million in 2022 if I've done the math). This gives a measure of the interest in the product a decade later.
In this debate, it was inevitable that Martin Scorsese would come up, who made quite a few statements when The Irishman premiered on Netflix and which have been stretched and manipulated to support any argument. Scorsese once said, "I suggest if you ever want to watch one of my movies, or most of the movies, please don't do it on your phone, please. An iPad, a big iPad, maybe ".
The problem is that what he said is not worth us to defend the Avatar case. In Scorsese's case, he was talking about a 3 hour and 29 minute film in which he wanted to add a lot of detail without giving anything up, a director's cut at first, with no regrets. Scorsese's film can be seen on a mobile perfectly.
In fact it benefits the CGI that rejuvenated his characters. Scorsese was talking about the format, but it's different from Avatar. Avatar depends for its impact on the images, on the settings, not on the interpretation, much less on the plot (let's see, there has to be a minimum of interest) while The Irishman simply does not. In fact, The Irishman could very well have been a four-part mini-series and it would have been just as good. The film held up well the jump from cinema to television. Avatar, the experience, no.
If you don't enjoy a good movie on the big screen this week, it's because you don't want to. With the celebration of the Film Festival you have the entire billboard for €3.50 a ticket. It also coincides with Spanish Film Day and what better way to celebrate it than by going to see a good production from our country? In recent weeks there is a film from Spain that is battling for first place among great titles.
Between the re-release of Avatar and the arrival of Smile, the recent horror phenomenon, is Model 77, the film by Alberto Rodríguez that premiered on September 23 with a very good reception. It's been almost three weeks and it continues to battle in the Top 3 against those box office monsters.
In its first weekend, Model 77 earned $404,000, according to data from BoxOffice Mojo, which placed it very close to the 417 of Trip to Paradise and the 459 of Don't worry, dear, although somewhat far from the 611 of Tadeo Jones : The emerald tablet. In his second week he has to deal with the million raised by Avatar, but still remains very high on the list, managing to surpass the successes of previous weeks.
Model 77 was in charge of opening the Official Section of the last San Sebastian Festival, although it was out of competition. Alberto Rodríguez, together with the screenwriter Rafael Cobos, shaped a real historical event that happened in 1978 in the famous Barcelona prison that gives the film its name. Before the famous prison break, a group of prisoners started a movement to fight for their rights.
At the center of the story is Manuel (Miguel Herrán), an accountant who goes to prison for embezzlement. The penalty that could befall him is disproportionate and the conditions in which he has to survive are inhumane. Prisoners are constantly mistreated by prison officers and there is no way out. After meeting Pino (Javier Gutiérrez), he forms COPEL (Coordinator of Spanish Prisoners in Struggle) and they kick off their own war for freedom.
'Avatar' returns to theaters, again, 13 years later. The highest-grossing film in history (not adjusted for inflation) returns to theaters in the hope of capturing new generations and reminding audiences why they liked it in the first place, ahead of the release of the sequel (the first of four) this Christmas. Seriously, what is behind this rush of reruns?.
Of course, it is one of the most curious cases of contemporary cinema: with almost 3,000 million dollars raised, James Cameron's film has been seen by practically everyone.
But hardly anyone ever thinks of her. Yes, there are fans of 'Avatar', websites dedicated to learning the language of the Na'vi, and those who continue to defend it on social networks when someone blurts out the typical joke: "Who can remember the name of just one of the characters in Na'vi?" 'Avatar'?". But the truth is that it is far from being a cult movie like 'Star Wars', 'The Lord of the Rings', 'The Dark Knight', 'Pirates of the Caribbean' or the 'Harry Potter' saga. His soundtrack is not iconic, his phrases are not remembered, nobody gets excited when remembering his characters.
Is it possible that one of the most commercially successful films in the entire history of cinema has left no cultural legacy? And if so, what is it that makes it such an anomaly?.
First you have to take into account a factor that differentiates 'Avatar' from the rest of the titles mentioned, and that at the same time makes it a practically miraculous case within the Hollywood industry. This is an original movie. It is not based on a previous comic book, nor on a best-selling novel, nor is it a remake or sequel to a successful 1980s trilogy.
James Cameron wrote the script from scratch, creating a completely new universe with unknown characters, and still managed to get audiences to show up in theaters en masse. If we look at the current top 10 highest-grossing movies in history, always without adjusting for inflation, there are only two movies that are not sagas (Marvel, 'Star Wars' or 'Jurassic Park') or remakes of Disney classics in action actual: 'Avatar' and (ahem) 'Titanic'. If anything, they belong to the James Cameron franchise.
We are talking about a science fiction blockbuster, with a budget of about 300 million dollars, totally original: it was a leap into the void by 20th Century Fox, and one that they took only because they trusted the guy who had made 'Titanic'. This trust in the filmmaker, on the other hand, has meant that 'Avatar' did not become a factory of sequels and spin-offs: Cameron decided to invest all the necessary years in developing the first installment, and it is the same one that has made sure to prevent the sequels from arriving until they were fully prepared and at the height of the first (hence we are talking about the premiere of 'Avatar 2' 13 years later).
