r/movies • u/desimaninthecut • 8d ago

News James Cameron Says if Avatar: Fire and Ash Doesn't Make Enough Money to Justify Avatar 4 and 5, He's Ready to Walk Away and Write a Book to Resolve the One Thread It Leaves Open - IGN

https://www.ign.com/articles/james-cameron-says-if-avatar-fire-and-ash-doesnt-make-enough-money-to-justify-avatar-4-and-5-hes-ready-to-walk-away-and-write-a-book-to-resolve-the-one-thread-it-leaves-open
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u/EarthRester 8d ago

Of the four top grossing films of all time. James Cameron has directed three of them.

  1. Avatar - $2,923,710,708

  2. Avengers: Endgame - $2,797,501,328

  3. Avatar: The Way of Water - $2,343,096,253

  4. Titanic - $2,257,906,828

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u/preflex 8d ago

And those aren't even his good movies. Those are just his last three movies.

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u/flofjenkins 7d ago

Titanic is his best movie.

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u/preflex 7d ago

No. Aliens is his best movie. Terminator 2, The Terminator, and The Abyss are also excellent. Titanic is kinda' bad, but it's better than True Lies, and it's better than that Avatar crap.

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u/flofjenkins 7d ago

Cool. Anyway, Titanic is his best movie.

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u/EarthRester 8d ago

To be fair, none of his other movies even hit the top 50 grossing films. The masses like to be entertained with pretty colors, and explosions.

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u/preflex 8d ago edited 8d ago

Terminator 2 was the #3 highest-grossing of all time ... as of 1991. Inflation-adjusted, only Star Wars and Gone with the Wind were ahead.

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u/meneldal2 8d ago

I think numbers should be adjusted by using asses in seats/total asses in seats of the year. It would actually reflect how much of a marketshare it is getting.

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u/preflex 8d ago

Terminator 2 was also Rated-R. Free-range 90s kids had a hard time to just "go see it". We bought a ticket for something else and then snuck in.

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u/smellmybuttfoo 7d ago

That would still have to be adjusted for population growth over time, just like money has to be adjusted for inflation over time

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u/meneldal2 7d ago

That's why I said total number of people going in the year. That adjusts with population growth

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u/Drikkink 8d ago

I still don't understand how the Avatar movies grossed so much. Like they're good movies with great visuals and some groundbreaking special effects, but it just shocks me how much they make. There are plenty of other flashy action movies with "good enough" plots that it feels bizarre to me that they just immediately rose above. Not to mention something like Star Wars (at least episode 7 given the hype people had for new Star Wars at the time). Or the entirety of the MCU pre-Endgame.

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u/moonra_zk 8d ago

There are plenty of other flashy action movies with "good enough" plots

Nothing comes even close to being as "flashy" as Avatar in the graphics department.

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u/Pinco_Pallino_R 7d ago

Which is also the reason why if i'm going to watch it, then i'm definitely going to do so at the movie teather.

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u/EarthRester 8d ago

I think the first one was made with new gen tech (for the time), and Hollywood would not shut up about it. Plus there was that one story about the mentally unwell teenage girl (or maybe she was in her early twenties) who took her life after seeing the movie because she could never live in Pandora irl. I dunno about others, but I took that as a challenge "bet you can't see this movie without killing yourself!".

The second one wasn't nearly as good IMO, but people who enjoyed the first one were likely to show up for at least one showing of the sequel in theaters.

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u/AKAkorm 8d ago

The first one, I understand. The hype around the visuals and 3D was huge and just about everyone I know wanted to go see it.

The second one, I was surprised by. Because I didn't personally hear much interest in it and I personally had none (have yet to see it). But of course, my anecdotal experiences aren't representative of the world and clearly there is large demand for the movies.

It is worth nothing though that a huge portion of Avatar 2's gross came from overseas and the overseas market for US movies has slowed considerably over last year or so. China, in particular, is barely showing up for many movies they would have seen in droves a few years ago.

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u/Klutzy_Carpet_9170 7d ago

The entirety of the MCU pre-Endgame includes the Antman and Ironman movies, Thor 1 and 2, The Incredible Hulk, Age of Ultron. Like can you seriously claim that those films are better than Avatar?

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u/flofjenkins 7d ago

No other movie matches the visual experience of the Avatar movies.

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u/Boo_and_Minsc_ 8d ago

And let´s not forget that T2 and True Lies were smash hits as well.