Monday, November 9, 2009

I Could Think Of A Lot Better Ways To Spend Half a Billion Dollars!


It's Monday. And I am checking out my favorite geek websites and I come across an article at "denofgeek.com about James Cameron's (Yes, that James Cameron) latest cinematic opus Avatar


Official Trailer for the Film Avatar.

Now, within the article, it states that Cameron's new film was featured in the New York Times, as having cost $500,000,000 to make. You read correctly. A Half of a Billion Dollars. Which begs the question. Does this movie have a snowball's chance in hell of turning a profit?


Now undoubtedly, James Cameron (Who grew up less than 20 minutes away from me.) is probably one of the most profitable film directors ever. In fact, I don't think any of his "Blockbusters" have failed in the monetary sense (With the exception of: The Abyss, of course). He does have the Highest Grossing Film of all time Title in his possession, (A Title that he has had for 11 years now) with "Titanic" (A Film that I have only seen once, and refuse to see again. I paid $1 to see it), Cameron undoubtedly has a lot of clout, but to bankroll a picture that costs that much money? Ouch! I was under the impression that we were in an economic downturn here!





Just to give you an idea of how much this movie has to make in order for it to turn a profit, just look at all of the movies this one has to beat in USA box office receipts just to "Make Money". Not withstanding that the film will probably do well overseas as well, if we just took the US (Which honestly, is the measuring stick for cinema) alone and saw what it was up against, the odds are staggering that "Avatar" will generate that kind of money. Especially because the Trailer itself, while visually stunning, shows a movie that seems, at best, quite predictable.

"Avatar" has to beat out films like: Star Wars, E.T., Spider-Man, Jurassic Park and The Lord of the Rings movies, just to turn a profit. Wow. James Cameron really likes adversity if this is the case.


Now I know that the movie itself isn't expensive due to casting, because there aren't any "Bankable" stars in the film. The biggest of the names in the film has to be Sigourney Weaver, and she's not such a big star that she can draw in a half billion in ticket sales. Her biggest success was #70 in the highest grossing films of all time, and that was for a small role as the "Ship's Computer" in WALL-E, other than that, she hasn't cracked even the top 150. Leading the March, is the star of the film, Sam Worthington, who's coming off of a lot of Jeers in "Terminator Salvation" (Forch Rating: 7/10) a movie that I enjoyed, but many didn't. Zoe Saldana, who played Uhura in the Star Trek reboot earlier this year (Forch Rating: 9.75/10) stars as well in a completely CG-role. The only other "Recognizable" names in the film are CCH Pounder (Amanda Waller from the Justice League Cartoons), Giovanni Ribisi and Michelle Rodriguez (Who hopefully was sober during filming, since she played a pilot).

Now Mr. Cameron has gone on record as saying: "Budgets may plunge, but I have already told the studio executives, 'I don't care if the highest-budgeted film of the year costs just $2m - as long as I'm the one making that motherf**ker, I'm happy'." which I love. That's a ballsy comment, and you gotta respect that! (Even though I don't respect him for making Titanic!) But you have to ask yourself: If that is his opinion, why does he need $500,000,000 to make a movie?

"Avatar" opens December 18th.


By: Forch F. Fortier (Who reminds you that Terminator 2: Judgement Day was probably the best Cameron film of all time, but Aliens is much more fun. I still always like to yell out "GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER!" because it's one of the best movie quotes of all time!)

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