Yeah, people who bet against Cameron tend to lose. Remember when Titanic was going to sink the entire studio? Remember all the talk of how Avatar was a debacle and destined to flop? I am sure we will here murmurings of the same in the run-up to Avatar 2.
It’s a bit odd and disappointing to me that he’s chosen to spend what might be the rest of this film-making career in the world of Avatar, but there you are.
(Admission: I like Titanic. I like Avatar too.)
Absolutely this. Underestimating Cameron is a mug’s game.
If the man declared that red was green, I’d start running red lights just to be safe.
On a related note, this thread drove me to hop over to Amazon to see about buying The Abyss on Blu-ray, and it apparently doesn’t exist. What the hell?
Apparently the consensus is “blame Fox.” They missed the 25 year anniversary, too.
I sure wish Cameron would go back to the Terminator mythos, but I guess it’s been too tainted by the last two movies (if not also by Terminator 3, which was at least watchable).
Fox is desperate for a sure-fire franchise. Universal rakes it in with Fast & Furious and Jurassic Park. Disney has Marvel and Star Wars. Lionsgate has Hunger Games, Twilight, and Divergent. Warner Brothers has Harry Potter and DC Comics (snicker).
Fox wants in on that game and they’re obviously hoping Avatar will do it. Until Deadpool, the Star Wars prequels were their biggest movies. They lost Star Wars and Deadpool is a Marvel property, so who knows what share Disney gets or even how long they have the license? It’s the same with Fox’s X-Men movies. Disney’s probably gets a cut of that, right? Or at least gets it back at some point? So, yeah, they’re looking for a mega-franchise to call their own. And what else are they going to do, start one from scratch? Hence, four planned Avatar movies.
-Tom
Disney doesn’t get anything from the X-Men movies or related stuff like Deadpool. That deal was done years before Disney bought Marvel and the Marvel execs at the time made what now is a terrible deal from their end.
What about this theory?
Cameron is shooting all the sequels back to back. This was announced at some point. It’s well known that Cameron is a perfectionist who always has budget problems. Now let’s say he tells the studio he needs a little bit more money. Maybe another 100M$. A natural answer to this would be “Take 200M, but we need a 4th sequel.”
Fox is taking a high risk, high reward gamble. It’s not unlikely that a very successful first sequel could finance the whole project, if it hits the jackpot. Then they would be printing money for another decade. But if the film flops they will become a take-over candidate.
That will expire at some point. Which is why they want a franchise like Avatar that isn’t borrowed.
-Tom
Theory is that FOX’s deal with Marvel gives them open-ended rights until they fail to make a live-action movie with a property for seven years. This explains the clawback of Daredevil and Electra, and possibly why FOX pushed out their terrible Fantastic Four reboot.
As I recall, the expiration for the Fox properties is “when the franchise has been left fallow for X years” (I think X may be 5). I’ve never read anything to the effect of any other end-clause to the agreement. Theoretically, if they can justify continuing to make some form of X-Men movies, for instance, every few years, they have the rights in perpetuity.
Feige doesn’t go into specifics, but the quote here backs this idea up (and meshes with many similar quotes I’ve read over the years but can’t bother finding now).
I still don’t think it was that bad a deal from Marvel’s perspective. The first X-men movie and Raimi’s Spider-man movie from Sony, for instance, are the movies that catapulted interest in Marvel properties in the mainstream viewing audience in the first place. I very much doubt we’d have the Marvel universe movies done by Marvel studios if it weren’t for those early movies done by Fox and Sony. I suppose you could argue that they could have had that AND also had a better deal, but who knows if that would have been the case back then? Maybe getting such a good deal was part of why Fox and Sony picked them up in the first place.
Not sure how I feel about more Avatar movies. There’s definitely potential in that universe. And Cameron has rarely disappointed me.
No it actually doesn’t which is why it was such a horrible deal and Disney hates it. Why they have pushed X-men in the comics to the back burner cause they feel it just help FOX and the movies. Sony basically has the same deal with Spiderman so Disney had to hash a deal to get him into the MCU or else it wouldn’t ever happen.
the Marvel execs at the time made what now is a terrible deal from their end
I dont think that Marvel made a terrible deal at all.
Marvel was on the verge of financial collapse when they made those rights deals. In their position it was basically sell off some of their best properties or lose everything. In hindsight, they made a great deal because it allowed them to finance their other properties which in turn led them to become the multi billion dollar multi media beast that they have become.
With that huge financial backing they have even managed to reclaim some right to Spiderman. The Fantastic 4 is probably the next one they will at least partially reclaim as Fox has made an absolute mess of the property and frankly at this point the only way I can see to save the Fantastic 4 property is for Fox to try to swing a shared rights deal with Marvel. That “terrible deal” is why Marvel is where they are today. Im sure they would love to get those properties back in full, but they sure are not hurting without them.
I’m not I need more Avatar movies, none of characters were particularily interesting beyond how they fit in the grand scheme of things, which was taken to the extreme already, what with all the bands of aboriginals coming from all corners, and mother tree brains, and giant space bombers, etc. You can’t easily ramp it up without sensory overload diminishing your emotional involvement, and you can’t go smaller without characters you care about, and I for one really didn’t empathize much for the blue people beyond the tragic real-world stereotype they represented.
That’s has nothing to do with Marvel themselves. All that happened after they sold themselves to Disney. Its the massive backing of Disney that has allowed Marvel movies to become what they have from financial support. Would have never happened without it.
And trust me, Disney absolutely hates that Fox has the rights to X-Men and they get nothing from it now besides the comic book sales which are a fraction of what the movies make.
One could argue that Disney only became eager to buy Marvel after Sony and Fox showed that there was substantial value in Marvel’s brands as movie characters. Marvel initially offered Spider-Man to Disney before Sony. Disney passed because they didn’t believe movies based on superhero comics could do big box office.
That’s has nothing to do with Marvel themselves. All that happened after they sold themselves to Disney.
The first Ironman came out in 2008. Disney did not buy Marvel until 2009, so saying that had nothing to do with Marvel is incorrect.
From what I read originally, the new movies will be, essentially, “from the Avatar universe”. The first sequel will be a whole new planet (a water world). Not sure if that means the folks from the original Avatar will show up, or if we’ll have a whole new set of characters. Although I guess the “A” on the logo shows the same flying thingy that was used by the main character in the first movie.
A sequel that doesn’t include a single of the original characters could be interesting.
I didn’t realize that about the X-Men and Deadpool deals. So Marvel just sold them off for a lump sum? They don’t earn any recurring licensing fees or a percentage of the take? Man, they must have been in dire straights. It’s kind of hard to remember a time when comic book properties were regarded as cinematic rubbish.
Certainly more interesting than the movie that did have the original characters.
ZING!
-Tom