Dude if you're gonna do that you have to space your comments more than 1 minute apart.

Who cares if you grew up working class? So did James Cameron. Does that REALLY mean anything when talking about this movie? Another bullshit argument you don't need to make.

I could Kiss you. Also, people should know by now Gabe is sort of the wild man, the loose cannon of the playlist if you will, He lobs hand grenades in the box-office report each weekend and I for one and happy with his take no prisoners approach, but we all have a slightly different take on things.

While we are all similar in spirit, we are all not one and the same.

and for what it's worth, i grew up poor, working-class and i fucking despise avatar. i know people are using this movie as a weapon in the culture wars and it's bullshit. (you don't like avatar, therefore you're pretentious and must read pitchfork and listen to vampire weekend, blah blah blah.) there are a whole host of problems wrong w/ avatar; personally, i don't like having my hand held, my ass wiped, and having everything under the sun explained to me in Big Statements and that's exactly what avatar does. it's infantile, cynical bullshit. cameron knows that people love stupid movies and he cashed in on it. brilliant, honestly. how could i hate him for that? he's the pt barnum of cinema.

of course, if your only argument for why avatar is awesome is because of its box office numbers, then you're an accountant and you have no opinion–the numbers speak for you.

But you have to admit this is the one film you cannot possible make. An Education–possibly. Bright Star–with hard work and the right people, you could do it. Avatar–0%chance of creating a worldwide ripple that delivers a brain-embedding environmental metaphor!

-Let's take 10% off for the added competition that video games have with movies nowadays.
-Subtract another 30% off of Titanic’s gross for people who can now choose to wait to see Avatar on DVD in 4 months and bootleg it.
-Take 15% off because it's based on a famous tragedy, which exploits an audience's familiarity with a real life event, instead of being an original film.
-20% off for relying on a teen-beat movie star to bring middle-school girls back into the movie again and again.
-Subtract another 10% because movies are less culturally relevant in the "Friday night out" plans today than they were 12 years ago

Obviously, that's all a joke, and so is selecting whatever criteria you want to adjust a movie's performance towards your opinion of it, while ignoring the infinite number of factors that play into a movie's success or failure. It's not reality. Revenue is revenue, and movies (esp. studio movies) are a business, so the only reality that matters is the numbers. New records will always be made and broken. Do people fuss about the 100m sprint record being beaten due to new, better, scientifically designed diets and running shoes? Unfortunately, they do, but I don't see why you'd want to be a part of that. Inflation adjustments are there for curious reading, it's not an exact science, and it doesn't hold water like straight revenue numbers. Wake up.

I like this blog a lot, but I never link you to anyone I know because you're so jaded and douchey sometimes – like a Pitchfork for movies. I guess that's what makes you who you are, though 🙂

If this is another CGI picture, James Cameron or not, it doesn't get near $500 million.

So the 3D mark-up can't just be subtracted when discussing the box-office report because if this movie isn't in 3D, less people would care, and the prices that the audience who does care to see it is 30-35% less.

Is this what you guys are thinking?

And talk about the 3D bump all you want, as long as in so doing you realize that the film would be #2 all time without it. And given the microscopic drops each week, it very well might be #1 all time – without the bump – before things are said and done.

It sucks when movies you don't like, or think are mediocre or whatever, take over the conversation. But don't become jaded Playlist! Stay strong! Avatar can't play forever – can it?!

Do you view this as one of the positive aspects of Avatar's box-office performance? I would say it is, especially for a blockbuster. Too often we get films that have $50-80 million openings and then drop off 40-50-60%.

I guess you can make the argument that the marketing and press/news coverage has been non-stop and that this has made potential audiences almost feel like they have to see it. Because everyone else has or will. Same went for 'Dark Knight' in a sense.

But 3D premium prices or not, the drop offs of only 10-20% are incredible to hear about every week.

Last week you guys mentioned that $500mil grossing movies could become somewhat of an annual norm because of 3D/IMAX prices. I kind of disagree. The RealD-3D was "revolutionary" for this movie, so it won't be for the next one.
I guess in favour of your argument was that this didn't have well-known source material (although it was a familiar premise) and still managed to attract huge audiences and $.

So maybe 'Inception' will be the first test of how far "original" blockbusters can go.(?) Hopefully they don't make it in 3D.