At last, it's official: 'Avatar' will be a trilogy

By Sarah Sluis

Avatar could be the next Star Wars. The blockbuster success of Avatar led to widespread speculation that there would be a sequel (or two), especially since director James Cameron expressed interest in the idea. Now, after lengthy negotiations, it appears that Cameron will start scripting the next installment in the series early 2011, with production to start later that year and a release date aiming for December 2014. The third installment would be released in December 2015.

I did some Internet digging, and discovered a clue to the second film's plot: it will be set in Pandora's oceans . I had imagined the second film would involve humans trying yet again to mine the land of Pandora, using the same backdrop, but changing the locale makes the premise more intriguing. Perhaps humans do try to go back to Pandora, but choose a more secretive location: the ocean. This would involve the Na'vi and ocean creatures banding together to fight off humans once more. Whatever the conflict, the ocean location means that the second film will have lots more "wow" moments like the floating islands in the first film.

I imagine the sequels will play out something like Star Wars�you can keep adding ice planets (Hoth) and Ewoks to keep the audience entertained, but as the series progresses audiences get a lot more fulfillment from seeing the characters change and from personal revelations. (Darth Vader is my father!?) I think the Avatar sequels present an opportunity to build on such characters and become a satisfying trilogy.

Movie sequels today tend to be derivative, while television allows writers more leeway to create engaging characters that change and, ironically, provide film-level entertainment. Under James Cameron's directing eye and with Jon Landau as a producer, I predict Avatar will be a trilogy with enduring power, with the ability to produce many, many editions of home entertainment "special edition" box sets.

Predicting the Oscars: Bigelow vs. Cameron

By Sarah Sluis

Right now, the race for the Best Director at the Oscars (this Sunday!) has narrowed down to two front runners: James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow. Formerly husband and wife, a relationship they refuse to turn into any kind of rivalry, the duo have both won their fair share of awards leading up to the event. Bigelow won the Directors Guild Award (the first woman to do so), an award that has correctly predicted the Oscar win all but six times since 1948. Cameron won the high-profile Golden Globe award for Best Director, but that has correlated only 60% of the time with the Oscar win. Based on that information alone, anyone but Bigelow winning will be an upset.

Even Cameron seems to want Bigelow to win--as long as Avatar gets Best Picture. On both "60 Minutes" (clipped here) and "Charlie Rose" (clipped here), Cameron has rooted for Bigelow in the hopes that the grand prize of Best Picture will go to Avatar and not The Hurt Locker. It's kind of a weird strategy, making him seem magnanimous while at the same time publicly giving up a less valuable award as a way to gun for the big one. While I loved Avatar, I think this commentator gets something right: the story is not original at all. It's well done, but not original. When your movie draws comparisons to Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest, and not just old legends like Pocahontas, that shows that you didn't transcend the age-old story but merely offered another iteration of it. Every movie has a flaw, and this is Avatar's biggest one.

Awards time also leads to lots of potential "firsts." Bigelow would be the first female director to win. Cameron would be the first person to win for back-to-back directing projects. Lee Daniels would be the first black person to win the Best Director award. However, his lack of other prominent "Best Director" awards puts him out of the running. So when it comes to Oscar pool time, here's my recommendation: pick Bigelow for Best Director, and Cameron if you want to go for the dark horse.

'Avatar' breaks two out of three all-time box-office records

By Sarah Sluis

This week, Avatar became the highest grossing film worldwide, just days after it broke the all-time overseas record. Only the domestic all-time record, held by Titanic, is left to fall. And even this film won't be the end of Avatar mania. Given that Cameron has already mentioned he has mapped out sequels for the movie, it came as little surprise when Slash film revealed that Avatar 2 is in the works, with technical crew members signing three to five-year contracts for the second film.

But what to make of Avatar's success? It has the record, but, to many, it doesn't reach quite the same phenomenon level of Titanic, which prompted magazine covers and excited chatter everywhere I went (perhaps the fact that I was a teen girl when Titanic came out contributes to my perception of the film as huge).

For those trying to contextualize just how big of a deal Avatar is, the all-time domestic box-office grosses, adjusted for inflation, help bring Avatar down from Pandora and back to Earth. On this list, the movie has a higher mountain to climb--it's ranked twenty-seventh. Titanic only made it to number six. Most of the films in the top ten are household names and beloved films among many Americans--Gone With the Wind, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, E.T., Jaws, and The Exorcist.

Part of the reason Avatar was able to break so many records so quickly was due to the added income of 3D and IMAX tickets. With enough people paying a 20-30% premium on tickets, the movie was able rack up more money with fewer ticket sales. It also means that at this point, fewer people have seen the movie than many other record-breakers on the list. That stands to change when Avatar receives another boost at the Oscars. With ten films up for Best Picture, it will be a shock if Avatar's not among them.

Having seen, and loved, Avatar in 3D, I'm still a little turned off when I see the images on a television screen or a still online. The look just doesn't seem right to me. Avatar is a uniquely theatrical movie at a time when fewer and fewer people are actually seeing a movie in theatres. It's just a matter of time before 3D-capable television screens help bridge the gap between theatrical and home entertainment, but in the meantime Avatar brings us back to a time when seeing movies on a big screen with few distractions was a special, impossible-to-replicate experience.

Sandra Bullock, Redbox, and 'Avatar': signs of change in the movie business

By Sarah Sluis

A quick scan of today's top stories shows records falling, new material, genres and stars bringing in big dollars at the box office, and the rental business changing--all signs of an exciting, change-filled year ahead.

First off, Sandra Bullock became the first sole female headliner to bring a movie to $200 million domestically with The Blind Side. A couple caveats: "Sole headliner" is kind of an arbitrary distinction. In fact, it mattered little to me that both what's-their-names Nia Vardalos and John Corbett both received credit on My Big Fat Greek Wedding. And add in inflation, and Pretty Woman's $178.4 million gross twenty years ago doesn't look so shabby (though perhaps Richard Gere had something to do with it). So while I appreciate the record, it's not like a female has never brought a film to $200 million before, it's just that they had some prominent supporting actors or co-stars that also received billing. Now that I've said my piece, congratulations to Sandra Bullock! There's a reason your goofy films like Miss Congeniality always merit watching when they come up on cable, and why you're a part of so many people's DVD collections.

Next up, Redbox, which added $1 billion to the rental market. DVD sales are down a lot, Blockbuster is down a little, but Redbox and Netflix have come in with two models that make renting a movie easy and economical. Even illegal downloaders pay for the convenience of these products. As a Manhattanite, I've never seen a Redbox (though I've heard of sightings of them in Brooklyn), but rest assured, if I were driving to strip malls, I'd be using them for their convenience and pricing structure. I also love that while Netflix is working the market of "deep cuts," using a robust recommendation system to get people to discover unlikely movies, Redbox has been working only on the small percentage of new releases with hyperawareness. Who ever thought that rental markets could be divided in this way? It's pretty clever.

Finally, Avatar, which I'm sure I will be talking about on this blog for months to come. It's the first adult broad-appeal 3D movie of the era, and it's breaking records left and right. A few weeks into its run, my mother just got around to telling me she plans to see it. With this kind of slow build of awareness through the grapevine, this movie will be playing in theatres for months to come. What does James Cameron have up his sleeve that will give him the #1 and #2 movie of all time? In fact, it's that neglected Hollywood demographic: women. Both of these two films have paired action and romance against a background of special-effects and spectacle, making it a must-see for both men and women. Avatar doesn't have as much of a love story as Titanic, so it probably won't do as well. It's worth noting that Cameron'sTerminator films and Aliens also have some of the most memorable female action heroes of all time, minus the love stories that figure into Avatar and Titanic, so that just might be the difference.

'Avatar' continues its reign with the highest-grossing third weekend ever

By Sarah Sluis

Three weeks into Avatar's run, the movie has kept its altitude when most other movies would have dropped off by tens of millions by now. Cue box-office records falling. This weekend it grossed $68.3 million, and broke the records for top gross on New Year's Day, as well as the highest-grossing third weekend ever. It's now the #4 top-grossing movie worldwide, below Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. While James Cameron's Titanic ended up with $1.8 billion worldwide and won't be unseated anytime soon, his Avatar only has to earn another $100 million before it assumes the #2 spot worldwide: give it a week or so.

Will it be possible for Avatar to submerge Titanic? At this point, it's outpacing Titanic's first three weeks, but then again, so were the movies in the #2 and #3 spots for worldwide gross. All the buzz and projections have the movie placing behind Titanic when the dust settles, but the sci-fi spectacle could end up getting closer than predicted. It's also worth noting that although the movie has placed #4 worldwide, it's still #15 domestically, where stalwarts like Star Wars and E.T., released before foreign box office had as big of a share, remain.

The only new release of the week, Sony Picture Classics' awards contender The White Ribbon, grossed $20,000 per location in a three-theatre release. Another one of the distributor's releases, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, came away with the highest per-screen average of the weekend, $32,000.

Most of the returnees in the top ten posted minimal drops or modest gains. The worst-off was Sherlock Holmes, which fell 38% to $38 million. The biggest gain came from The Princess and the Frog, which added 11% to its total to finish with $10 million, followed closely by a 10.3% gain from The Blind Side, which finished two spots higher than Frog with $12.6 million.

Awards favorite Up in the Air also generated a healthy number of ticket sales, going up .7% from last week to make $11.3 million in ticket sales.

This Friday a romance, comedy, and vampire movie will debut in theatres, but don't expect any of them to grab the top spot from Avatar.

'Avatar's' $73 million opening weekend puts pressure on week to come

By Sarah Sluis

Avatar faced snowstorms all along the East Coast its opening weekend, dampening its first returns. Still, the movie racked up $73 million, and should see high weekday returns for the next two weeks, which many people have off. It was bested by 2007's December release I Am Legend, which brought in $77 million, but the two films' per-screen averages were neck and neck. Both earned $21,000 per screen, since I Am Legend had 700 more screens in its release. Still, since viewers were paying more to see the movie in 3D, Avatar's theatres were probably less full.

Given the positive word-of-mouth on the 3D adventure, Avatar should continue do well as word catches on. 3D has mainly been the realm of family movies, so many viewers may need quality reassurance from their friends before they don the glasses themselves. Overseas, the movie earned $159 million worldwide, where director James Cameron's famous tin ear for dialogue is lost in translation. While most movies end up with half their gross from overseas, Avatar currently has 70% of its gross from outside North America, making hiccups like East Coast snowstorms less significant.

The other wide release of the week, Did You Hear About the Morgans?, underperformed slightly, earning $7 million. Some of those moviegoers undoubtedly chose The Blind Side instead, which finished a spot ahead with $10 million.

The biggest mover in the rest of the top ten was Up in the Air, which gained three spots when it more than doubled the theatres in its release. Playing in 175 theatres, it earned $3.1 million. Its per-screen average of $17,000 was the best of any returning film.

Golden Globe contenders Nine, Crazy Heart, and The Young Victoria debuted this week. Nine had the best per-screen average, $61,000, and a four-screen release. Crazy Heart came in second with a $21,000 per-screen average, also at four locations. The Young Victoria had a different strategy, releasing in twenty locations, which brought its per-screen average down to $7,000. It made more money than Crazy Heart, however, due to the size of its release.

In just two days, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel will open, followed by Sherlock Holmes and It's Complicated on Christmas Day. 'Tis the season.

Will 3D technology be adopted like color, or like sound?

By Sarah Sluis

"3D is not like sound, but color," James Cameron recently pronounced. For those versed in film history, the statement is profound. If the 3D format is indeed like color, it could take decades for it to fully penetrate film production. It will first be used for event, fantasy, and animated films, before dramas, comedies, and Oscar contenders embrace the form. While the idea of 3D taking so long to become a default part of production seems like a strike against the format, it instead speaks to its longevity. 3D will not a passing gimmick, James Cameron is saying, but something that will contribute to a film's verisimilitude.

When sound was introduced, with The Jazz Singer, it took just a few years for all films to be produced using sound. Howard Hughes famously re-did much of his film Hell's Angels once it appeared that sound was essential for blockbuster success. Title cards, along with mouthed words, felt fake, while sound made everything real--the technology brought the form closer to the plays and vaudeville shows film so often emulated.

Color, on the other, hand, was viewed as unrealistic, expensive, or suitable only for event films. The saturated colors in The Wizard of Oz, for example, are used in the fantasy segment, not the Kansas part. While that film used the newer three-strip Technicolor process, its technological predecessors were clearly fake and gimmicky, much like 1950s 3D technology. Viewers were skeptical. In the early days of the nickelodeons, select frames (like a fire, or a

woman's dress) would be hand-painted for effect. However meticulously

done, they have an unfortunate pulsating effect

due to the difficulty of consistently drawing within the lines. The

two-tone Technicolor process that succeeded it likewise has an

inaccuracy that I find charming but contemporaneous audiences found

too stylized and unreal. Three-strip Technicolor was the breakthrough that finally made color look real, just like Real D and its ilk, but it still took decades before an average film would use the process.

As with color, Hollywood will probably begin to give out awards to its 3D films, but it won't be a condition for success. Gone with the Wind (1939) won the Best Picture Oscar, but black & white films continued to win the top prize through the 1960s (The Apartment, anyone?). As for sound? Wings, a wartime romance blockbuster, won the first Best Picture Oscar, and the only one for a silent film. If Cameron's argument is correct, we shouldn't worry that a minority of films are being made in 3D, but trust that the animated, concert, and action films using the format are setting the tone. Someday, awards biopics like Milk and indie dramedies like Squid & The Whale will be made in 3D.

Films like Up, which use 3D as an accent, not for in-your-face gimmicks, speak to the future of the format. Pixar's film is the frontrunner for Best Animated Feature at the 2010 Oscars. If Cameron's right, his 3D adventure Avatar may be joining it at the podium, slowly ushering in an age where 3D isn't a selling point, but a prerequisite.