Avatar Will Make A Profit, $500 Million Budget A Joke, Says Fox
By Devindra Hardawar/Nov. 23, 2009 11:50 pm EST
That’s a ridiculous number. It has actually no relationship to the actual cost of the movie. People keep repeating a number, which was as if you added the cost of building the studio 80 years ago to the cost of Avatar.
The movie was quite expensive, there is no question about that. But viewed now, from the perspective of its completion and having seen it, it’s a formidable work and money well spent.
While Gianopulos may be confident about theater returns, he concedes that DVD and Blu-ray sales have dropped about 13%. This isn’t a catastrophic scenario as some have predicted, but it will certainly factor into their calculations for the film’s returns.
Quite honestly, he could be bluffing about the budget to manage the severity of Avatar’s failure if it does flop. (And I don’t think we’ll ever see the true numbers for the film if it does.) At this point, I’m less concerned about Avatar’s box office potential and more so with the quality of the film. After waiting such a long time for another action epic from Cameron, I’d be far more disappointed if he delivered a crappy film that performed well at the box office, instead of one that was legitimately good but tanked with moviegoers.
