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AVATAR 2 THE WAY OF WATER starring Sam Worthington (2022)
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Started by Bosco685,

832 posts in this topic

drotto

drotto

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On 12/31/2022 at 10:51 AM, paperheart said:

‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ Ringing In Healthy New Year With $87M-$92M 4-Day – Saturday AM Update

$450Mish by end Monday; has now blown past Rogue One. $600M+ seems a fait accompli, therefore $2B WW as well.

 

For the doubters, we know part 3 was a sure thing, but beyond that was questionable.   Seems like Cameron is going to get all 4 of his films. 

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Bosco685

Bosco685

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On 12/31/2022 at 10:54 AM, drotto said:

For the doubters, we know part 3 was a sure thing, but beyond that was questionable.   Seems like Cameron is going to get all 4 of his films. 

Even at $400M production budget ($460M production + $250M marketing was not a serious estimate), it is already at 3.0X.

2022_Top3.thumb.PNG.a885d6d6e38ad6337643f1158a6b3516.PNG

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drotto

drotto

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On 12/31/2022 at 12:25 PM, Bosco685 said:

Even at $400M production budget ($460M production + $250M marketing was not a serious estimate), it is already at 3.0X.

2022_Top3.thumb.PNG.a885d6d6e38ad6337643f1158a6b3516.PNG

I wonder how the original 1 billion from Fox figures into all of this?  Was that ment to cover all four films?  Was that a start up thing, or basically a down payment?

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Bosco685

Bosco685

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On 12/31/2022 at 12:33 PM, drotto said:

I wonder how the original 1 billion from Fox figures into all of this?  Was that ment to cover all four films?  Was that a start up thing, or basically a down payment?

Whatever it is, having filmed like Cameron did he ensured to knock out as much sequels to achieve his vision at least with Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 (Avatar 4's work TBD what comes of that). Like you noted, if anything he frontloaded the expenses with this approach. Which the latest interview with The Wrap Cameron notes after being so many years since the first film, they used Avatar 2 to lay the groundwork technically and storywise for the sequels.

James Cameron Compares ‘Avatar’ Sequels to Episodic Television: ‘It’s Really One Big Story’

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“I think the thing people should remember here is we were gone for a long time from the marketplace,” Cameron told TheWrap during an interview for our “Way of Water” cover story conducted ahead of the film’s release. “But part of that was that we were putting into a pipeline five movies. I mean one that we’ve already done, four new films and shooting two movies back-to-back – Movie 2, Movie 3, part of Movie 4, and that has to do with sort of a story point and a big time jump that takes place. Because we wanna shoot out the kids cause they were aging so quickly. [“Avatar 4”] is fully written and fully designed, [“Avatar 5”] is fully written and fully designed. These movies exist in our minds. These stories exist.”

 

Indeed, Cameron now says after the decade-long gap between the first two films, the plan is to release the sequels at a more regular cadence to cater to audiences’ investment in the characters. The Oscar-winning filmmaker added that thanks to the years of development, writing and design work for all four sequels at once, there’s a complete epic saga to be told, comparing each “Avatar” sequel to an episode of television in an ongoing series.

 

“Each of those scripts had to come to its own story conclusion and its own emotional resolution,” producer Jon Landau said.

 

“It’s one big story,” Cameron added. “It’s really one big story, but it’s like episodic television. Each one has its own proximal resolution. The character problems continue across the cut.”

 

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Bosco685

Bosco685

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On 12/30/2022 at 3:44 PM, Bosco685 said:

With this Avatar 2 budget assumption discussion, I was playing around with a model based on today's latest box office to determine what an estimated studio revenue goal would be to break even. Also, recognizing with James Cameron's correction that Avatar 2 needs to land around the Top 10 of total box office results. I'll stretch it to Top 12 for this analysis.

Avatar_Budget0.png.b391d20b19d28a04e8538566a98b3315.png

Current box office distribution: Ballpark the portion of the individual markets making up the total worldwide box office. So of a total worldwide box office, we can distinguish what is required across all three box office regions.

Avatar_Budget1.png.588a5137ad7687804fefed55bdc61b28.png

Budget assumption model: Based on the high, moderate and low estimations for the Production Budget and Print & Ad Budget (assuming both account for all theatrical expenses).

Avatar_Budget2.png.9ec1219349bc0f7a6b41fa3db588d615.png

Worldwide box office revenue model: Based on the budget assumptions, we can estimate the studio revenue breakeven point. I had to play with the worldwide box office total to get as close as possible to the budget assumptions.

Avatar_Budget3.thumb.png.881047a3e012e1112d883b2703668e92.png

Final Analysis:

  • High Budget: Flawed assumption, as Cameron would have noted Avatar 2 would need to land in the Top 6 in order to achieve $1.7B (around $710M studio revenue to break even).
  • Low Budget: Flawed assumption, as Cameron would have noted Avatar 2 is already profitable since it now sits at #23 beating Minions (2015).
  • Moderate Budget: More valid assumption, as it places the goal for Avatar 2 closer to the Top 10. So a $400M Production, and $200M for P&A (Marketing).

I'll even update my production budget chart to reflect $400M based on this more informed analysis.

VARIETY: 'Avatar: The Way of Water’ Rules Over New Year’s, Global Gross Hits $1.38 Billion

Quote

The ambitious — and staggeringly expensive — science-fiction epic has been in the works for years, blowing past several release dates as Cameron figured out a way to expand his story of a race of alien creatures struggling against hostile invaders. He also labored to create new technology that would allow him to do performance capture work underwater. The wait appears to have been worth it. “Avatar: The Way of Water” brought in a projected $63.4 million domestically over New Year’s weekend and is expected to generate $82.4 million over the four-day holiday (most people have Monday off and many of them will apparently be spending that day with the Na’vi).

 

But all that innovation didn’t come cheap and Cameron has suggested that in order to turn a profit for Disney, the company that bought the rights to “Avatar” when it purchased much of 21st Century Fox in 2019, the movie will need to be one of the highest-grossing films in history. Sources put “Avatar: The Way of Water’s” break-even point at roughly $1.4 billion, a figure it is on the precipice of passing.

$1.4B breakeven and part of the expense was creating the technology to film all the sequels beforehand.

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