Avatar, a blockbuster in more ways than one
My prediction: Avatar will become the highest grossing film in history in under 40 days of release (current record = Titanic w/ $1.84B -- and that's after it's complete theatrical run!). This would mean grossing another $160M in the next 6 days, no small feat even for a new-release summer blockbuster. No matter how you look at it, it's a phenomenon. Now I don't think it's "best picture" material by Academy standards, but if for some reason it wins the top honor in the Oscars (as it did in the Golden Globes), we could be looking at a $2.5 billion movie. And that's just the beginning. There will be an additional plethora of revenue streams that will be created following the theatrical release: DVD, games, toys, sequels, comic books, TV series, cartoons, etc, etc... This is not just a movie, this is an entire industry that will end up creating jobs for thousands of people worldwide for years to come. Regardless of whether you liked the movie, you really have pause and consider just how transformative and impactful a single product can be. Beyond the dollars it will rake and people this franchise will employee, think of the "collateral" impact this is likely to have have on 3D TV, iMAX movies, and a whole new class of technologies (hardware and software) that make this all possible. And to think, it all started with an idea. Someone, somewhere (in this case, James Cameron), said "what if... ?" Yeah, sometimes you just gotta pause.
