James Cameron’s Avatar Cost 500 Million?!
Someone stop the madness! The price tag speculation for James Cameron’s Avatar continues to rise to unbelievable heights. According to an article in the NYTimes, the sci-fi epic is nearing the half a billion dollar mark in terms of its overall production budget. This sounds insane considering the economy and the flailing movie industry as a whole. How exactly does Cameron and Fox plan on making a profit from this movie?
You may think that the more expensive the movie is the better it will be. Avatar will probably have so many technological advancements in it, that the film industry will be set a blaze. That idea may very well be true, but Fox is putting a lot of money into an unknown property. Avatar isn’t a sequel or a comic or anything. It’s just an idea that Cameron wanted to bring to the big screen over 14 years ago. The estimated production cost of the film has been rumored to be just under or around 300 million dollars, which leaves another extra 200 million in question.
The Times, stresses that the final tally for Avatar hasn’t been noted, but the extra millions of dollars that could contribute to its price tag may span from the world wide marketing efforts. This may sound like a huge weight for Fox to carry but the majority of the film has been financed by private equity partners.
Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Media — picked up 60 percent of the budget, according to people who were briefed on the economics of the film but spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid conflict with the studio or filmmakers.
Due to the nature of the film’s situation Cameron even agreed to defer his payment until the studio and others were compensated. Everyone involved with this movie is taking a gamble, there’s no other way to put it. Nothing guarantees that fans will come out to see the movie for anything other than to support the director. Where’s the major draw? It’s definitely not in the amazing special effects, because they clearly can’t be seen in the trailers.
As a fan of Cameron, I really do hope this goes well because he’s an intelligent and talented director who deserves to see his labor of love succeed. Here’s to hoping for the best.
What do you think of escalating budget for Avatar?
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:44AM
"Where’s the major draw? It’s definitely not in the amazing special effects, because they clearly can’t be seen in the trailers."
-You could not have summed it up better. Your quote not only proves that Cameron and his team have achieved their goal in their effects for "Avatar" – flawlessly seamless integration of photorealistic CG and live-action – but also how ignorant you are to the quality of the film's visuals. If you knew what "groundbreaking" meant in terms of visual effects (or filmmaking for that matter), you would not have made a superficial statement, and if you haven't seen it in 3D yet, you do not know what you are talking about.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 2:24AM
It may be groundbreaking visually, but that really doesn't mean that anyone besides film nerds are going to give a shit. I highly doubt that the film buffs are going to be able to cover this film's massive price tag. 500 million for a nicely animated CGI Ferngully? Someone wasn't thinking straight.
Saturday, November 14, 2009 6:18PM
When was the last time a James Cameron movie bombed in theaters. Hell even Titanic before it was released it was heavily mocked and passed off as a failure because of the production problems, big budget, and the long-running time of the finished movie, now it's the highest grossing film in current box office history. All I got from that 3 + min. trailer is that this movie is gonna be epic in terms of visuals and story even if it isn't an original concept. James Cameron have always delivered so have faith guys. Plus I believe the ones making all the fuss about how this movie is going to bomb will be the first in line come Dec. 18th.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 10:19PM
This figure is probably correct but does not mean that it took the full 500 mil to produce the film. The Film probably cost 250 mil in production costs alone. The extra 250 mil goes into R&D, the videogame, marketing, and distribution. What is most important about this is the R&D. James cameron (and Fox) arn't only paying big money for an epic movie. They are also paying to develop a new pipeline to make these types of films. Now that they have made the primary investment in R&D, they will no doubt use the technological capitol to make similar films over the course of the next decade for much cheaper.
Friday, December 18, 2009 7:53PM
Saw Avatar in IMAX 3-d this morning. Normally I dont like these movie but the hype mad me want to go. This movie will take in Titanic money which ended up to be over $1 Bil worldwide.
Monday, January 11, 2010 12:43AM
1.2 billion and counting! Love it!!! This one is just gaining momentum as the word spreads that it's really worth seeing after all!