by James Cameron Avatar movies have a reputation for being very long. The director believes in delivering a massive spectacle with his theatrical event films and that’s what 2009 Avatar Turned out to be. The theatrical cut was 2 hours and 42 minutes long and played in theaters for months. The result – Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time. Even its recent re-release grossed $75 million worldwide. So those who wonder Avatar 2The long lifespan should not worry you. James Cameron has been vocal enough to support the long haul, and he also revealed an incident from the past when he lashed out at a Fox executive for begging to do Avatar shorter.
The heated argument with a Fox Exec
James Cameron is known to be quite angry when he doesn’t get what he wants from his films. But usually his judgment proves right and chooses to keep AvatarThe runtime was proof of that. But, he revealed that after a pre-release screening of Avatara Fox executive contacted him with a “Diagnosis expression of affected cancer.” He begged him to reduce Avatarthe execution of.
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And according to Cameron, this is what he told Exec:
“I said something I’ve never said to anyone else in the business. I think this movie is going to make all the money. And when it does, it’ll be too late for you to like it. the movie. The time for you to like the movie is today. So, I’m not asking you to say something you don’t feel, but just know that I will always know, no matter how bad you are. rave about the movie going forward when it makes all the money.
The director continues:
“And that’s exactly what I said, in all caps, ALL THE MONEY, not some of the money, all the fucking money. I said, ‘You can’t come back to me and compliment the movie or go with you and say, ‘Look what we did together.’ You can’t do that. At that point, this particular studio head got mad and made And I told him to get the f**k out of my office. And that’s where he was left.
With a worldwide box office total of $2.922 billion, the world knows Cameron was right. And he’s also right Avatar: The Way of the Waterthe execution of.
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Longer movies usually work
We’ve seen several instances where studios have pushed for their movies to be shorter so they can have an extra showing of a particular movie in one day. The idea is that extra screening will obviously put more butts on the chairs, and therefore, lead to extra money. But that idea has been proven wrong time and time again. The 3 highest-grossing films all last nearly 3 hours. In fact, 4 of the top 5 are close to the 150 minute mark. So, no matter how long, a movie sells if it’s good. And with all big budget events, people generally prefer to have longer shows than 90-120 minute popcorn performers.
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It is not necessary that a longer execution time always provides a successful output and Eternals is the proof. But the problem arises when studios impose a mandate on films that require longer running times but lack space. WB kept a 2 hour tenure on Justice League and the product was a steaming pile of shit! Thor: Love and Thunder he was rumored to have a 2 hour term and he underperformed. So it’s good that Disney didn’t make the same mistake with Black Panther: Wakanda Foreverand they don’t Avatar: The Way of the Water That is.
According to Cameron, The way of the water needed its 192 minutes of runtime to flesh out all the new characters and we support that! But it will be interesting to see if the film even comes close to being halfway to the commercial success of its predecessor.
Avatar: The Way of the Water released on December 16, 2022.
Source: Variety
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