James Cameron has revealed that Avatar: The Way of Water, the long overdue sequel to his 2009 blockbuster and box office champion, Avatar, needs to be the “third or fourth highest-grossing film in history” in order to be profitable.
Cameron shared the seemingly lofty, $2 billion goal in a new interview with GQ magazine that celebrates the director’s return to the box office following his work on the original film, which released 13 years ago but is finally getting its belated and, apparently, very expensive, sequel:
The Way of Water was expensive to make—How expensive? “Very fucking,” according to Cameron, who told me he’d informed the studio that the film represented “the worst business case in movie history.” In order to be profitable, he’d said, “you have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history. That’s your threshold. That’s your break even.”
Avatar critics believe that the film could flop, reasoning that the theatrical landscape is very different from what it was in 2009 and how 3D can no longer be used as an effective gimmick to drive people into cinemas, but Cameron doesn’t seem to be nervous, going on explain how he’s a “fucking magnet” to challenges:
“I like difficult,” he told me. “I’m attracted by difficult. Difficult is a fucking magnet for me. I go straight to difficult. And I think it probably goes back to this idea that there are lots of smart, really gifted, really talented filmmakers out there that just can’t do the difficult stuff. So that gives me a tactical edge to do something nobody else has ever seen, because the really gifted people don’t fucking want to do it.”
Cameron even shared a story in which he cursed out a Fox executive who begged him to make Avatar shorter, telling him to “get the fuck out of my office” after he “flipped out”:
Cameron still remembers an executive at the company—“who will go unnamed, because this is a really negative review”—who approached Cameron with a “stricken cancer-diagnosis expression” after a prerelease screening of the film and begged the director to shorten it. “I said something I’ve never said to anybody else in the business,” Cameron recalled. He said he told him, “ ‘I think this movie is going to make all the fucking money. And when it does, it’s going to be too late for you to love the film. The time for you to love the movie is today. So I’m not asking you to say something that you don’t feel, but just know that I will always know that no matter how complimentary you are about the movie in the future when it makes all the money’—and that’s exactly what I said, in caps, ALL THE MONEY, not some of the money, all the fucking money. I said, ‘You can’t come back to me and compliment the film or chum along and say, ‘Look what we did together.’ You won’t be able to do that.’ At that point, that particular studio executive flipped out and went bug shit on me. And I told him to get the fuck out of my office. And that’s where it was left.”
Avatar ended up making over $2.7 billion worldwide, cementing it as one of the most successful films ever.
It remains to be seen whether Avatar: The Way of Water, which releases on December 16, 2022, will do similar numbers.
A final trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water that 20th Century Studios released last night can be viewed below.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →I guess that's one way to go out with a bang.
Cry me a friggin river you out of touch Hollywood (insert random expletive here). I'm fairly sure most people on the planet feel it's the most expensive time ever just to be alive. Btw what is the average adult movie ticket these days? How about trying to do that and even taking them to a restaurant? Suddenly that expensive GPU looks a lot more affordable.
His award-winning personality didn't exactly win me over. I lost count of the expletives. Charming. It's not like I was going to go see his very f*cking expensive movie anyway, but I don't think his attitude is going to lure families to the theater, and he needs their f*cking money.
How come he gets special swearing privileges? No fair.
It's funny how hollywood compares revenue 1:1 not mentioning that the same revenue is half the tickets sold compared to just a few years ago.
I wasn't going to watch it anyway, as I didn't watch the first one either. IDK why people went so crazy over it. Giraffes cross-bred with cats are just not my thing.
BTW, people who swear a lot usually have very little of value to say.
I do see a lot of the lists adjusted for inflation. It does change the list quite a bit. But you are right, most of the time they don’t do this, because no one remembers when GWTW was out in theaters.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films#endnote_Inflation[/URL]
I am curious about the movie but will either watch it on streaming or buy on physical if it gets enough good reviews that I find credible.
The consumer price index is not really a good metric as movie tickets got more expensive over the years than general inflation would've warranted. A movie ticket costs 4x times as much as it did in 2009 when avatar came out. While cumulative inflation is about 70% Meaning it should only cost 1.7x as much. So you can easily cut these modern "blockbusters" in half if you want to get actual attendance.
"Avatar, needs to be the "third or fourth highest-grossing film in history" in order to be profitable."
Guess it won't be then, sorry! :ROFLMAO:
Wouldn’t that already be factored in? I mean, the price of a ticket is irrelevant to how much revenue a movie makes: it would impact the number of movie goers.
You might get more movie goers at a lower ticket price, but you also are earning less per ticket … part of that math theaters do to figure how how to price it. Either way, the movie is going to make whatever it makes, if that’s fewer people at a higher price or more people at a lower price.
As a viewer I don't care how much money a movie has made, I care about how many people were interested in it. You cannot say two movies are equally successful when one was seen by half the people.
Depends on what metric you are judging "successful" by
Could be awards won, could be popularity, could be money made, could be ... anything really.
If I'm a writer or producer, I probably care about awards won and popularity more so than how much money it makes (unless you are Michael Bay)
If I were an investor - I don't really care how many people watched it, I care about how much return it nets me on my investment.
Just depends on your perspective.
As a viewer - I don't care how many other people are interested in it, I only care if I'm interested in it.
That might be true, but at least they're honest about what they do say.
I will sa
4x?! Where do you live that it went up that much in 13 years?
Average ticket price in 2009: $7.50
Average ticket price in 2021: $9.16
Not even a $4 increase. lol
Check the price of a coke and popcorn
Also - $9.16?! The last time I went to the theatre was … 8 years ago maybe? Tickets then were… $20something each. I have no idea what they are today, so I’ll concede maybe they haven’t went up that much, but unless there are a heaping ton of Dollar Cinemas out there bringing the price down, I can’t imagine seeing a recent release in the theater for anything close to $9.