Is this Loyal?

We all know it isn't making anywhere near 500 million dollars. If this grosses 300 that'd be quite an achievement. At this point, I'm thinking 200-240.

Welcome back Loyal!

I just re-quote myself:
That's why my official prediction is $70m/$450m

Brilliant post. One of the best ive seen on a movie forum. But I dont agree it will make more than $500m. Im still thinking $220-$300m.

Regardless, point 8 got me thinking. I did think the Navi looked like characters that people just wouldnt want to go and see - but you may be on to something.

No matter how well-put together, $500 million is still not happening. We will probably not see $500 million for a non-sequel for another 8-10 years.

I refuse this kind of thinking - probably because I'm in this business for three decades and I have seen it all over the years (and I mean hundreds of "it's a lock" that have failed and hundreds of "it will never happen" that happened anyway...

BTW:
Let's assume an average ticket price of $10 for AVATAR because of 3D and IMAX, than it needs 50m admissions - a feat achieved by non-sequels like SPIDER-MAN, PASSION OF THE CHRIST, FINDING NEMO, HARRY POTTER 1 and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN in this decade)

All of them having far more appeal, indeed.


Because let's face it there is one SINGLE thing all the high predictions are based on:

James Cameron. Someone who hasn't made a movie that's not a docu in ten years. You might refuse this thinking but what do you say about only ONE non-sequel breaking $400 million this decade and that only barely? What do you say about every single year since 2003 being topped by a sequel?

Well I will re-read some of the post i had to quickly flick through as its a very good argument but im still not sure, atleast not of $500m. $350m or so perhaps.

BTW - PM me who you were on BOR if its ok. Going on about a decade and a half of being a box office nut!

Well, of course it has everything to do with James Cameron - there wouldn't be this kind of anticipation if it were McG's AVATAR, right?

And James Cameron has a track record to be proud of - he directed the biggest hits of 1997 and 1991 and the third biggest hit of 1994 so why would it be so unheard of to direct the biggest hit of 2009?
Steven Spielberg did it five times by the way...

Spielberg is the best example here actually. Remember how high the predictions were for War of the Worlds? Cruise, Spielberg, alien invasion! Sure, it did well, but didn't even get close to $300 million.

And I didn't say a non-sequel won't top this year (though I don't predict that to happen), I said that $500 million isn't happening for a non-sequel. I mean Avatar would have to gross even less than Spider-Man to become #1 of the year. But $500 million? Nope. Wait for inflation.

Again, my prediction is $450m - but you said it will take 8-10 years until a non-sequel makes $500m - all I'm saying is that it can happen any day... (speaking of my lifelong experience in this business)...

And I speak from observing trends which are frankly quite obvious. Shockers happen, but almost all of them are easily explainable afterall. Some things just can't happen. Like your $100+ million STar Trek opening prediction. Your prediction might have been closer than that of most others at that time and you saw a break-out most didn't. But $100 million was, at no point, in any way, possible for a Star Trek reboot.

Kudos for your article, must have been a lot of work, even if i'm sceptical about some of the points you make. I've seen awesome movies not doing much and crappy ones doing gangbusters. Sadly, the world is not full of people like you and me or Avatar would have been the first movie to cross the billion mark in North America.

Very nicely done presenting your argument.

But I have a hard time seeing a non-sequel hitting 500m these days. We've only had one afterall, and that one took over the globe for an entire year. Can Avatar really remain relevant in theatres 3+ months after it's released?

It's a nicely written-up post, but it's all speculation and no numbers. There's no specific correlation to your points and how exactly they will impact specific ticket sales, etc. Let's run through some basic ticket prices and numbers.

(1) Original Movies
Most original movies (not previously based on material published in another format) do not have gigantic opening weekends. They may do quite well, but it's based off of strong legs and large, but not record-setting OW. For me, this rules out AVATAR doing a $100m+ OW. Cameron may be considered a sub-genre of his own, but he's not the equivalent of SPIDER-MAN or PASSION OF THE CHRIST or other non-sequel movies that had large built-in audiences.

(2)Ticket Prices
Average ticket price this year is supposedly around $7.40. AVATAR's average ticket price will be much higher, thanks to large amounts of 3-D theaters and the IMAX screens. So let's say $10 for a total average. Or we could be more precise: 3-D tickets traditionally have been responsible for around 50% or so of an OW gross (it might be a little higher, I can't remember). If we assume a 2-D ticket price of $7.40 and a 3-D price of around $11 (since IMAX 3-D prices are significantly higher than regular 3-D), we get 3-D tickets accounting for around 35-40% of sales, and 2-D tickets accounting for the rest, 60-65%.

(3) December Openings
The record for a December Opening is I AM LEGEND with $77 million. It also basically opened the same weekend as AVATAR will. Breaking down the total ticket sales based on the average ticket price then, we arrive at around 11 million tickets sold. However, I AM LEGEND had Will Smith, possibly the surest thing to a box-office success as there is these days. I don't think it's valid to assume that AVATAR can match or break those total ticket sales. If we take something like 75-80% of IAL's ticket sales and use either the $7.40 or more precise 2-D/3-D breakdown, you get an OW somewhere in the $75-80 million range. That's where I think AVATAR will open.

(4) Holiday Legs
As noted earlier, an average multiplier through the holidays is around 4. I think that -- like every blockbuster these days -- AVATAR will be a big frontloaded (midnight shows adding to Friday grosses, etc). So let's take a slightly smaller multiplier of around 3.7. You get a gross of around $260-280 by the end of the New Years weekend.

Taking all those factors into account, I don't think it's right to say that $300m should be considered a disappointment, not for an original movie with no big-name stars, especially when you consider that domestic box-office is only around 40% of what AVATAR will gross worldwide. And I think the data backs up my opinion that a reasonable estimate of the final gross is around $300-340m, depending on the various legs through the holidays and after the holidays.

Now, could it break out? Sure. But I don't think that's likely and I think the $300-340m estimate is far, far closer to its final gross than a $450-500m estimate is.

Well, the studio is selling its product, of course they will say nice things. As for Cameron, i disagree about what he has supposedly said. The gist of his comments is basically that it's a step beyond all else in terms of special effects. He may be confident but he's not as presumptuous as to claim the story and characters will resonate hugely with the mass audience and it has to if it wants to come close to $500m. The future will tell...

I also remember Joel Silver claiming everywhere that The Matrix Reloaed/Revolutions would be something no one has ever seen before. That holds little value.

On the Na'vi unusual look argument...this is pure speculation.

On the production budget...since when does a high production budget guarantee a success in any way? Just look at Superman Returns.

The sky's the limit... it's a possibility, but not necessarily a probability. As fans, we like to hope for the best. But we need to counter those arguments with a realistic look at how -- generally -- a big blockbuster performs these days.

To reiterate, a $300m domestic gross is not a disappointment at all... it means (in all likelihood) the movie's gonna pull in somewhere around $550m overseas for a worldwide total of $850m. That's just huge, staggeringly huge for an original movie. It would put AVATAR as the #3 original movie of all time, behind TITANIC and FINDING NEMO, with a chance at passing NEMO for #2. To call that a disappointment is amazing.

Again, you're putting words in his mouth. It was not he who proclaimed the budget is $500m.

Let's say the mystical $500m figure breaks down as follows: $325m production budget, $150m marketing, $25m deferred salaries and expenses (from Cameron and others).

Fox is receiving a $25-30m tax rebate from shooting in NZ, so that reduces the budget to around $300m. The budget is being split 40/60 between Fox and its private equity partners (Dune Entertainment and Ingenius Media), so Fox's investment is somewhere around $120m. Combined with the $150m from worldwide marketing, their total investment comes to around $270m. We don't know the details of how Dune Entertainment and Ingenius Media get repaid and when, but they're basically out around $180m. Fox also will receive income from their partnering with the Ubisoft, the book publishers, the merchandise manufacturers, etc.

It's safe to say that AVATAR needs to gross around $900m in total revenue streams to generate profit for Fox and all its partners. However, as my numbers showed earlier, it's not unlikely for AVATAR to generate up to $800m or more just from theatrical box-office. Given the hundreds of millions it'll generate from home video sales, videogame sales, merchandising, book sales, TV rights, etc and it's not hard to see why everyone's jumping on board for a piece of the pie.

A film is deemed a success or failure based on expectation. $300m, for better or worse, is still seen as a super-success. Furthermore, the analysis of gross compared to budget is also primarily a web phenomenon. If AVATAR grosses $250m, print articles about it aren't going to say that's a failure. They'll note the strong gross, then make a comment about the expensive budget, and then they'll follow it up with another comment about the strong overseas gross.

Look at 2012. It's $65+m opening was touted by Variety and other trade magazines as huge; so was its worldwide OW of $225m. But 2012 cost over $200m to make (not including marketing), and will likely gross less than that domestically. Nonetheless, it will be seen as a big success.

I'd say that if AVATAR grosses under $200m, it will be seen as a significant disappointment. If it grosses $200-240 million (the "official" budget), then it will be seen as a mild disappointment, but not too bad. If it grosses $250m+, it will be seen as a big hit.

Back to your points: KONG was seen as a disappointment compared to the crazy hype (especially online) leading up to its release, where many box-office forum posts were expecting something along the lines of a ROTK-opening. (It also had a soft Wednesday, which AVATAR doesn't need to worry about.) Posts about AVATAR claiming that $300m is a "disappointment" and expecting TDK-type numbers are insane. In the modern-day box-office, there are only 4 original films that have grossed over $300m (TITANIC, NEMO, LION KING, and INDEPENDENCE DAY). How can being the fifth film to reach this rarified plateau be seen as a disappointment?

Meh at your reasoning, your like the Dr. Venkman of Box-office

And you forgot Passion of the Christ Telemachos