_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

I don't think I've ever made it more than halfway through "Gone with the Wind." Are re-releases accounted for in that adjusted list?

What I'd really like to see is a list of number of tickets sold, if only as a vital reminder that the vast majority of the world couldn't give a fuck what an "Avatar" is.

The 3-D surcharge is only cheating because it's "competing" against films that didn't have that financial leg up (and like I said, it's so far between $150 and $200 mil bonus - minus the 3-D cash it wouldn't be in the top 20 grossers yet). I couldn't fathom sitting through "Avatar" in 2-D any more than I could watch the (equally awesome in 3-D) "Beowulf" in 2-D (and I tried that shit but could barely make it 15 minutes into a movie I enjoyed immensely in theaters). Supposedly a huge number of the global ticket sales are for 2-D screenings, FWIW. What a bunch of suckers.

couldn't give a shit about the 3d it was the IMAX that made it for me

What I'd really like to see is a list of number of tickets sold, if only as a vital reminder that the vast majority of the world couldn't give a fuck what an "Avatar" is.

So far int'l gross is 2x domestic. Or am I missing something?

Conceding that the list is meaningless without inflation adjustment, it's worth noting that out of the 20 top grossers, exactly 3 were not based on existing properties. Those three:

TITANIC (nom'd for seemingly everything except Best Original Screenplay)
AVATAR
FINDING NEMO (nom'd for Best Original Screenplay)

tb totally fair "titanic" is kind of an existing property

yeah i was gonna say

though it only exists now in the briney deep, holding close to her bosom those 1522 poor souls

So far int'l gross is 2x domestic. Or am I missing something?

I just meant that of the 300 million people in the US (for example), how many will see "Avatar?" And globally as well, a fraction of a fraction, and that includes the film's apparently massive success in China!

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118013377.html?categoryid=3599&cs=1&nid=4758

$4.8 million opening day record, y'all!

Anyway, just some perspective that by talking about gross we always gloss over how few people (relatively speaking) even bother flocking to the movies. I've always wondered how many people (not how much money) it takes to make something a seemingly huge hit.

it's just a way to make the movies seem like bigger hits than they actually are, to an extent. which is why movies deal with $$$ when talking about success as opposed to people talking about how many people bought a copy of an album.

2007 - JUNO
2006 - LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
2005 - CRASH

u all r arguing abt this fn award - im confiscating yr 3d glasses

actually max, the two major Titanic productions from Hollywood before Cameron didn't think of adding teenage puppylove as the crucial ingredient. So it WAS original.

The reason GWTW will never be caught in tickets sold is that practically everyone DID go to the movies then.

*~now we're alone at last~*

i meant less that it had been made before than that its kind of a story that everyone knows already so calling it "original" is a little bit of a stretch u know

There are about six basic plots, young one.

The reason GWTW will never be caught in tickets sold is that practically everyone DID go to the movies then.

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 6, 2010 8:27 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i wonder how this formulation looks w/emerging economies added and population growth figured - a much smaller percentage americans go to the movies than in 1939 but many more asians and south americans must be going right - and there are just so many more people now

was thinking max meant the boat the titanic was the original property myself

max is misunderstood

like the Ark of the Covenant? xp

yeah indiana jones is a real guy right

yeah sorry let me be clear: "titanic" is not really an orig. property in the same way that "avatar" or "finding nemo" are

because it is named after a boat

and another thing do movie tickets cost the same in inflation adjusted dollars as they used to - how abt foreign tickets hows that work

I may have to disagree with you, max, since I am overhearing ordinary joes say that Avatar is a routine Western.

avatar is nothing short of a revolution in movie magic fyi

i hope the blue ppl of pandora see it and are inspired to incite a ~real~ revolution

titanic was a boat

that sounds a boat right

get outta here with that ship

*gets sinking feeling*

there was such a drastic split in titanic, the first half sank pretty quickly, the second half stayed afloat better

*grosses 1.2 billion adjusted dollars*

take it to the poop deck

nrq upthread:

the 3-d is annoying and distracting. would probably need to know about perceptual psychology to say why, but imo in most instances it does nothing interesting and draws attention to irrelevant things. more damagingly it splits the image, quite brutally, into separate panes. why do this? it also dulls the colours.

wtf? what does "splits the image into separate panes" even mean?

fwiw i'm ambivalent about the 3d. It makes shit look real, totally real! I felt I could just reach out and touch things in the film. But movies don't need to look totally real to be good, so it's still a gimmick, albeit a great one.

I think he means the focal plane but I'm not sure

nrq upthread:

the 3-d is annoying and distracting. would probably need to know about perceptual psychology to say why, but imo in most instances it does nothing interesting and draws attention to irrelevant things. more damagingly it splits the image, quite brutally, into separate panes. why do this? it also dulls the colours.

wtf? what does "splits the image into separate panes" even mean?

fwiw i'm ambivalent about the 3d. It makes shit look real, totally real! I felt I could just reach out and touch things in the film. But movies don't need to look totally real to be good, so it's still a gimmick, albeit a great one.

― CATBEAST 7777 (ledge), Thursday, January 7, 2010 10:50 AM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark

say there are three people in the shot, one closest to us, one behind, one further back. shoot this in 2d and (i reckon) yer brain will basically see this as it would irl, i.e. in 3d. in 'avatar', though, i felt that the effect of the 3-d technology was to put three people in three definite planes, in a weird way flattening them out. it felt abstract and jarring to me but ymmv.

still read that as a latin 'yummy'

i felt that the effect of the 3-d technology was to put three people in three definite planes, in a weird way flattening them out. it felt abstract and jarring to me but ymmv.

Yes, I found this quite distracting - bit of a dime-store* stereoscopic effect.

(* obviously I don't really know what I mean by dime-store)

right-wing cunt who dines out on having gone to university with boris johnson and david cameron defends it from his awful friends:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/all/5686568/if-were-going-to-rage-against-cultural-atrocities-lets-make-sure-we-target-the-right-ones.thtml

I can't believe I read the whole thing. BARF.

This stands out: the irritation of seeing their kids drip-fed Mary-Seacole-global-warming-and-Eid studies. Christ on fire.

bit of a dime-store* stereoscopic effect.

it's the same effect you get with binoculars, isn't it? each object looks flattened out like the scene is made of cardboard cutouts positioned at different distances. don't understand the optics of it: assume w/ binoculars it's because telephoto lenses flatten perspective - is it just cos they film mostly w/ telephotos?

you do get it to an extent with other visual media, and the jarringness is, im sure, partly the shock of the new.

just not clear what the 3d adds to the experience of a simple three-shot. there were some shots, like the first of the long chamber full of sleeping marines, that i thought were superb.

but all in all this was basically the abyss + strange days + aliens divided by shit.

Is shit a negative number or a fraction?

partly the shock of the new

Could be. The perspective-flattening thing with long lenses is something everyone is now used to in still photography and 2D film/video but perhaps it wasn't always the case. The 3D depth of field stuff was often so jarring that it made me think that some shots (like in the helicopter with two chars + background) were composed, not with a long lens and a wide aperture, but with some sort of Photoshop blur mask, hence the sharp edges to the foreground characters. I don't know really. The cryosleep chambers were well done though.

http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/autaux?b=M%5ea11f09b8576e606bcb5038dfdb92fb821&u=http%3A%2F%2Fachewood.com%2Fcomic.php%3Fdate%3D01072010

roflofloflmao

just not clear what the 3d adds to the experience of a simple three-shot. there were some shots, like the first of the long chamber full of sleeping marines, that i thought were superb.

yeah i'm kinda with you there. but it's all or nothing.

i kinda agree about the depth of field thing, it makes it look like some sort of paper puppet theater and really pulls me out of it

i'm kind of glad 3D doesn't work for me. the only scene it worked in was when there was some ash falling after a battle, and i found it extremely jarring and distrcting. my gf loved the 3D, though.

titanic was a boat

― meryl streep post-brazilian (s1ocki), Wednesday, January 6, 2010 6:35 PM

a pred boat?

does the 3D have a different effect than the 3D Imax? (it really shouldn't i'd imagine) wasn't really distracted by the 3D...

They should glue, like, four Imax screens together and make a Super Imax screen, then charge $100 a ticket. That would be very awesome, or, barring that, at least very big.

otm it would be huge

this was the first 'narrative' film i've seen in IMAX, and the first time i've been to an IMAX in basically a decade, i'd forgotten how lol hueg they are