James Cameron recently said:
Part of my focus in the second film is in creating a different environment – a different setting within Pandora. And I’m going to be focusing on the ocean on Pandora, which will be equally rich and diverse and crazy and imaginative, but it just won’t be a rain forest.
This is massively positive news. Cameron loves the ocean, so you know he’ll throw the kitchen sink at this project. Plus, since they’ve already developed the CGI infrastructure, the actors won’t need to be punished with twelve hours of filming in the water per day a la The Abyss. I also believe that Cameron will fix the heavy-handedness this time around. It will still be pro-environment but it won’t be as simple as “Don’t kill the God-Tree!” One more interesting note, the last sequel Cameron directed was called Terminator 2… which made eight times what the original did at the box office. It also took seven years to come to the big screen. Conclusion: Avatar 2 is going to be the biggest film in history, but it’s also going to take a bit longer than people are expecting.
2. Studios Still Allergic to Honesty
Our own C. Robert Cargill asked “Are Studios Fudging the Numbers?” and of course the answer is “Yes, definitely yes, no doubt about it, yes.” But we’ve got a system where it’s preferable (and to your benefit) to be dishonest so you can spin the story. The past two weekends are prime examples. Two weekends ago the Sunday estimates indicated Date Night beat Clash of the Titans by $.3m, owning the Monday morning news cycle as “The Number #1 movie in America!” Then came the Monday actuals, where Clash of the Titans won by $1.4m. Date Night had overestimated the Sunday take by a staggering $1.9m. But this way was better for everyone, no? Date Night got a little 36-hour marketing bounce. Clash eventually got to claim the title.
It happened again last weekend, with How to Train Your Dragon “winning” the weekend until it was proven that, no, it hadn’t back in real life. News outlets were able to run two stories, each meant for different audiences, the first being:
Kick-Ass Falters!
followed, a day later, by
Kick-Ass Wins!
Again, everyone was happy, and this is the way of the current system. No one, outside of a few people within each studio, can tell you what’s made money and what hasn’t. The studios have become a kid who reads his report card aloud to you, without ever showing you the document itself. Studios can spin any movie’s financials any way they like. No one knows the marketing budgets and the production budgets are often flat-out inaccurate. Studios will claim “we’re going great!” on any title they can, except if they owe the talent a percentage, in which case the narrative becomes “We didn’t make ten dollars on this project!” It would be amazing if it wasn’t so shady. But it’s all about control, pure and simple. The studios want to be in a position to put out whatever story they need to at any given moment. Right now that’s how the system works. Will we ever see the physical report card itself? Probably not, unless we break in, Sneakers style.
Deadline is reporting that we won’t be seeing a new James Bond film anytime soon, here’s the statement EON (Bond’s production company) released:
Due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of MGM and the failure to close a sale of the studio, we have suspended development on BOND 23 indefinitely. We do not know when development will resume and do not have a date for the release of BOND 23,” stated Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli jointly.
Blerg! Someone buy MGM already! The franchise has as much momentum as anything out there right now, let’s all take a meeting and get this thing back on track. Not because it’s the right thing to do, but because you’ll make hundreds of millions of dollars off of it.
Bonus Random Thought: How long can this go before we need a new Bond? Three years? Five years? I don’t see Daniel Craig waiting around indefinitely, do you?
4. Friday the 13th Sequel a Goner?
Shock Till You Drop mentioned producer Brad Fuller called the Friday the 13th sequel dead. My first initial reaction was skepticism, after all, the first one made big bucks on a limited budget. Some further research on the topic unearthed this:
“The reason they are not going forward has more to do with the fact two studios are involved-more than anything else.”
So it’s a revenue/budget sharing issue. Yeeps. Those sort of corporate negotiations do tend to fly in the face of all logic. Perhaps it’s really not going to happen. Sad times for horror fans around the globe.
5. The Men in Black Go 3-D Trilogy.
Under the category of “news you could have predicted” comes down word that another Men in Black is likely to head into production. The best part of the story? A writer from Tropic Thunder is involved. The bad part? 3-D. Sigh. We can’t escape 3-D, right now it’s the collection agency of the movie business. Still, I’m pleased to see progress on this front, if only because the first one was such cheesy fun. And the idea that Will Smith might rap again? It makes my heart sing. Why? Because I still see things between him and DJ Jazzy Jeff working out. Don’t throw away your promising rap career, Will! Especially not for a paltry $10 million per acting gig!
On that note, I hope you all have a solid weekend, Iron Man 2 and the summer movie season will be here soon!
Check out last week’s Movie Musings here
Laremy is the lead critic and senior producer for a website named Film.com. He’s also available on Twitter.
