Avatar wins big at the Golden Globes

James Cameron's sci-fi epic Avatar has won Best Picture and Best Director at the Golden Globes Awards Ceremony in Hollywood.

The Golden Globes are a good indicator of what the Academy will vote for in March. The Golden Globes are actually made up of all the Foreign Press in Hollywood, so it again shows the global appeal of the 3-D movie.

Avatar's current gross is $1.6 billion. This has been done in 4 weeks. It is only now $200 million from beating Titanic as the overall box office champ. Who directed Titanic? None other than James Cameron!

Looking at Avatar just illustrates what a risky yet lucrative business Hollywood is. Avatar cost somewhere in the region of $500 million to create, and normally you have to add another $200 million in marketing and advertising, so it just shows that to start making a profit Avatar had to rake in $700 million!

But James Cameron is used to this. T2, True Lies, and Titanic, were all the most expensive films ever at the time. All were blockbusters.

Curiously, Cameron has went for the same slot in the year as Titanic. The December/January period is a quiet one for cinema generally, and by launching the film at this time, he is avoiding the summer blockbusters of May-August, and also avoiding the Oscar worthies who launch in October/November.

Even at $1.6 billion (with 2 weeks of that in December) Avatar may have legs yet. Titanic was released in December 1997, but actually grossed more in 1998. So Avatar may become the first movie to break the $2 billion mark, and who knows where it might end up? Is $3 billion out of the question?

Repeat viewings and a successful foreign (to the USA) market has raised hopes. Normally a Hollywood film that is a success does more box office in the USA than the rest of the world combined. However, since 1997/98, more and more former Eastern Bloc nations have cinemas, so Avatar is bound to do better in Russia et al than Titanic did.

No doubt Avatar's video/DVD/blu ray sales will be massive also... just in time for 3-D TV!

What next for Cameron? President? (He's born in Canada, so he's ruled out!)

Avatar

I went to the Glasgow Science Centre on Wednesday Night to see a special advance preview of James Cameron's Avatar.

Not only was it at the IMAX, but also in 3-D!

The movie was just under 3 hours long, but it was pretty exciting and the time flew in. There was a little bit of motion sickness which cropped up in the flying scenes.

Overall the film itself was superb, but the experience of a 3-D movie at the IMAX was surreal. This is surely the future of cinema, and another step for the movies to differentiate themselves from TV.

This happened in the 1950s when people began to stay at home to watch TV and not go to the flicks. Hollywood responded by inventing Cinemascope and later Surroundsound to have a unique experience you could only have in the movies.

Films became more outlandish and had bigger budgets and indeed became spectacles.

In the 1980s and 90s cinema again fought back against the rise of the VHS Videotape by creating the modern multiplex cinema, offering more choice of 10-16 screens rather than the tradtional 1-3 screens.

However I do miss the old Odeon in Glasgow with the giant screen 1. I remember seeing Superman the Movie way back in around 1978/79, and indeed the epic Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979/80 when I was a nipper. These incredible experiences of seeing such spectacular films on the big screen are great memories. And I am sure the children of today who got to see Avatar in 3-D will never forget the experience.

I just wish I had a share of James Cameron's profits!