Sunday 7: Hollywood's Three Year 3-D Report Card

Doesn't Avatar just pop right into your mind??  

He's made no secret about it: James Cameron is a big fan of using 3-D in movies. We say it's either that or he knows 3-D is just a big fad he could use to his advantage.  Regardless, while Cameron may not have started Hollywood's current obsession with 3-D, he's certainly added plenty of fuel to the red-and-blue glasses fire.  

Ridley Scott's new Robin Hood won't see Russell Crowe in three dimensions, but his long-awaited Alien prequel most certainly will.  The same can't be said for Christopher Nolan's Batman 3, though; we give the most-esteemed director props for calling it out as the cinematic 'distraction' that it is.  But it's quite obvious that plenty of producer-types don't share Nolan's opinion. 

Who's planning to add the technological tweak to their films, you ask?  Conveniently, the folks at Film Releases have compiled a listIF of all the movies known to be going 3-D in the next two years. Overall, we're not too happy to say our axiom above stands up pretty well. You'll have to leave us your Back Issues - and your opinion - after you peruse their list [here].

Panic At Wal-Mart: AVATAR Earth Day Release Is Everything BUT Earth Friendly -- or Honest

Daily abbracadabblers will remember how we of the comicsblog made a concerted effort last month to 'Go Green' for St. Patrick's Day; environmentally-friendly blogging is the only socially-conscious form of social media, we say.  By the same token, James Cameron, the acclaimed writer and director of Hollywood's all-time top-grossing spectacle Avatar, is an individual most people would place in our earth-aware camp. From the 'Home Tree' to the 'Tree of Souls,' the inconclusive yet overt religious eco-symbolism of Avatar, while often liberally entangled with the film's quasi-political commentary, can't be missed.

Building off those signs and symbols and environmental messages, Cameron and Fox Home Video's plans to release Avatar on home video on 22 April, Earth Day, seem to almost make some kind of sense - at least, at first glance.  But considering that Earth Day comes two days after the standard weekly home video release day Tuesday - today - the entire effort becomes immediately transparent as an insincere marketing scam. It's ultimate result? Panic at the Wal-Mart.

Founded in the US in 1972, Earth Day has grown into the largest environmental event worldwide, with over 500 million people in 180 countries participating in related activities.  Earth Day has had its impact, too: a survey conducted by the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) noted that children placed the environment third in a list of 10 issues behind only AIDS and kidnapping.  Put that data together and one thing becomes obvious: Earth Day and its world-wide millions of young, socially-conscious consumers are ripe for the picking.

That's exactly what Avatar is hoping to do. And they'll be doing it, one tree at a time. Fox Studios and Cameron have partnered with the Earth Day Network with the pledge to plant one million trees in 15 different countries by the end of this year. As environmentally commendable - and costly - as that may sound, this is an effort made by a film with production costs topping $250M.  Cameron's money could have sent every eligible student in California to college; instead, Avatar's only pursuit was profit, and it's not done yet.

Today's the day folks across the nation are used to hitting their Best Buy or, like here in Springfield,  the local Wal-Mart to shop for new releases. And with good reason: over 100 new DVD and Blu Ray's were released today alone.  Although there's been considerable hype about Avatar's delayed home video debut this Thursday,  it's off-schedule release hasn't saturated the airwaves, the net or the newspapers.  For the segment of Wal-Mart shoppers that's not glued to the internet on a daily basis, the result of their mad dash to the store for Avatar will be met only with frustration, confusion and dismay.  Judging from our own experiences at Springfield's super store, we're left to ask: Can the panic be far behind?

The damage and devastation won't end there, either. Avatar's special 22 April release date will prompt an untold number must-buy shoppers to make repeat trips to mini-malls across America.  Talk about dead dinosaurs!  That unnecessary mileage alone might make one begin to think of James Cameron as a eco-hypocrite; but at this juncture, we caution against such hasty generalizations.  After all, the story's not yet over.

Or maybe it is, and maybe this story's as predictable as Avatar's own.  Thursday's release, priced anywhere from $19 - $26 retail, will offer no extras on either DVD or Blu-Ray format; only the film and corresponding menu will be there so that, according to claims made by Fox Home Video, the disc's entire storage space can be utilized to provide the highest quality optimal picture and sound.  That digital tidbit sounds (extravagantly) dubious to us, and we're not alone.  It also smacks of an all-too-hastily released home video product, but who are we to say? 

It is what Cameron's saying, however, and it's the slim rationale supporting the November release of Avatar's Special Edition, which will contain all the bells and whistles that shoppers won't be buying this Thursday. But even Avatar SE won't offer movie fans a 3-D experience; that's still to come. 

Ever altruistic, Fox has announced that it will be launching an interactive "Avatar Program" to help fans bridge the gap between the film's April and November releases.  By using a unique code found inside the Avatar Blu-ray/DVD, consumers can register at avatarmovie.com to  gain exclusive access to  bonus material and special content their new purchase doesn't provide. Even better, only registered fans will be able to adopt one of the one million trees being planted on behalf of Earth Day --  and receive a 'virtual home tree' they can locate on a map to see where it's actually planted.

Back up two paragraphs and re-read Fox's reason for Thursday's bare-bones release. Content cramming, in light of the film's virtual tree gimmick, seems to be nothing more but an excuse for Avatar's Earth Day marketing scheme. Compounded with the costs of buying Avatar at least twice, the paper, petroleum, and manufacturing costs of producing Avatar at least twice, and the gasoline consumed from car trips and SUV trips to the store at least twice, we can't possibly fathom how anyone could claim in the least that Avatar is a friend of the Earth. 

Yet someone does. James Cameron does.  The time of hasty generalizations has passed; our story, for now, is over. James Cameron is a hypocrite.  And at this juncture, we'd caution against believing otherwise. 

*   *   *   *   *

Still not convinced that Cameron's a hypocrite? Stick with the comicsblog, because we've got another story that'll make your inner skeptic turn blue! And if you're planning to buy Avatar this Thursday, spare the air and save yourself a trip to Wal-Mart by buying from our online Amazon shop! Click the links to purchase Avatar (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) [Blu-ray]  ($19.99) or Avatar single-disc DVD ($15.99)!!

And dabblers -- don't forget your Back Issues! We want to hear you weigh in Avatar! More to come...

No Sour Grapes as Apple's iPAD Pre-Orders Top 120K In One Day

Yes, we know our picture is misleading. Someone was having shots for lunch...Now, we can't say for certain who that could be. But since we also just spotted our newest intern Erin go bra-less down the breezeway, our list of suspects is narrowing.

Much unlike Apple Computer's broadband frequency, which must have been jam-packed  when Apple began taking pre-orders for their new iPad tablet last Friday.  How bad was that Apple jam? In just one day, America's 'Apple-juiced' appetites proved just how hungry they were: according to  Investor Village, Apple sold over 120,000 iPad pre-orders 12 March, when both the iPad WiFi and iPad 3G models went live to buy.  

 iPad WiFi is scheduled to physically appear in Apple retail stores 03 April, leaving  some industry worry-warts to wonder if Apple can meet the demand. But by all accounts -- especially bank accounts -- it's looking to us like those crazy and creative Cupertinians most definitely can. Pre-order sales of 120K equate to roughly $75 million in revenue for Apple -- in one day.  By comparison, James Cameron's Avatar earned a 'whopping' $27  million on its first day, and required three days to crawl towards the $80M mark. To Avatar fans everywhere, we have only one thing to say: How 'bout them Apples?

Coming Attractions: Oscar, The State of The Animated Film, and Pixar's TOY STORY 3

We want to give a loud round of applause  to San Francisco's amazing little animation studio that could, Pixar Studios, for bringing Oscar home yet again last night.  Up scored big-time at Sunday's Academy Awards, winning the best animated film award while beating out its parent company Disney's The Princess And The Frog as well as comic book writer and fantasy author Neil Gaiman's  Coraline.  Interestingly, Pixar's Up was made using computer-generated imagery; unlike in previous years,  Up was sole CGI nominee for this year's award. Disney's Princess was created through hand-drawn animation, while Coraline was an exercise in the pain-staking art of stop-motion. 

Understandably,  comics fans and the talented illustrators and artists who create the books they read might, like us, feel somewhat inclined to favor more traditional styles of animation. But Up's win last night doesn't signal the end of classical animation.  If anything, last night's ceremony was an indicator good news -- nominees like Princess and Coraline are welcome signs that the field of motion picture animation is rekindling its romance with the art of animation.  Up's win isn't a suggestion of CGI's superiority, either. Not that Up's CGI wasn't stellar, because it was. But so was Up's story -- and that's why another little gold man now stands on mantle in Emeryville. 

We'll admit that our position - that strength of story won the night for Up and not its SFX -- is arguable, although we'd only need to step outside the Academy's animation category to find support.  In case you hadn't heard, the highest-grossing movie in recent history -James Cameron's Avatar - lost its Best Picture bid to a film that cost just $11M to make, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. To be fair, the Academy's decision to award Oscar to Locker and not Avatar - or any of the other nominees - was likely based on many factors, from the oft-waved argument of 'film as art' versus 'film as SFX spectacle', to politics, to the PR campaigns waged by both the studios and representatives of both films and how well or poorly those campaigns were managed.  We'll avoid details on both sides. Suffice it to say that neither Avatar or Locker were in a very good position relative to the other; there was no sure-fire, hands down, easy choice of one film over the other and as such, no single , official answer can be given. 

Unofficially, we'll claim that there is -- and it's story, pure and simple. Avatar was expected to perform really well last night -  yet the film only managed three Oscars  - in technical categories: best cinematography, best visual effects, and best art direction.  Awards from the 'bigger' categories went Hurt Locker’s way.   

For Cameron, Fox, and probably many viewers and industry executives, Avatar's loss is likely seen as  some kind of upset -- an upset, moreover, that films classified as 'science fiction' or 'fantasy' have endured before.  At the 1977 Academy Awards, Star Wars  - as much of a break-through movie in many regards as Avatar -  lost top honors to Annie Hall; thirty years later, Star Wars' loss is nearly unfathomable.  Then, five years later, at the 1982 Academy Awards, upset came again to the genre, as  Gandhi 'peaced-out' E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. In retrospect, the films that lost outweigh in cultural significance the films that won by a hundredfold. 

Whether or not there's some truth to an Academy bias against SciFi movie makers, Avatar's performance at last night's Oscars was based solely on the film's own merits.  As far as 'Best Picture' goes, all we had to do was ask ourselves this question:  Is Avatar the Star Wars or E.T -  two of Science Fiction's very best films - of 2009?

Our conclusion would be 'nope.'  Now, we're not going to say that science fiction movies - much like science fiction stories of any type, be they movies, comics, novels, etc - don't have their work cut-out for them when seeking or deserving critical acclaim in any realm. Clearly, as fervent fans of the four-color industry and the much under-appreciated comic book, we're well aware of the biases against our kind of fun. Nevertheless,  Avatar wasn't a victim of bias, but of ego.

Somewhere between Avatar and Up's performances at the Academy Awards lies the true State of Animation today.  But that's not the only place to find the truth, either.  GeekTyrant posted the picture at the top of today's blog back in late February.  Created using CGI by Brazilian graphic designer Raoni Nery of Seagulls Fly Studio,  Nery  wanted to portray what a 'real' Buzz Lightyear would look like.  Buzz, of course, is one of the two heroes from Pixar's classic Toy Story and Toy Story 2 animated films. 

It's great work, because Nery nailed Buzz to a 'T.' But which Buzz would you rather see? The one above, or the one below:

The State of Animation today clearly tells us that our animated capabilities can produce both to the point of believability, but we wouldn't want to see Nery's realistic Buzz take the place of Pixar's in Toy Story 3. If he did, no matter how well, we' d be sacrificing story for effect, substance for style - just like James Cameron.

 

Buzz is coming back - and soon. Featuring the voices of actors Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg, Michael Keaton,  Bonnie Hunt, Timothy Dalton, and Joan Cusack, the third chapter in their toy story - Toy Story 3 - opens June 18th.  Buzz, his pal Woody, and the rest of the now college-bound Andy's trust toy collection, are thrust into an uncertain future amongst a gaggle of all-new toys. Pixar will be introducing 14 new toy characters in their third movie, including Ken Doll (voiced by Michael Keaton), a magenta-hued Care Bear, a Masters of the Universe insectoid action figure knock-off, the adorably plush Peas-in-a-Pod, and a keyboard playing triceratops.  'No Toy Gets Left Behind' is the motto moving forward - and we're sure that even our old Dabbler will find himself moving toward the theater once this movie opens.  It looks good, and although it wears a 'Disney label,', we'll throw Pixar's next flick the financial support it deserves.  

Dabblers, get down to our Back Issues and tell us if Toy Story 3 will be part of your summer viewing! And while you're there, chime in on your reactions to last night's Oscar party. Was Avatar robbed? Or did Cameron's epic movie get the Hurt it deserved?  And was Up your favorite animated feature in 2009...or was it Coraline? We want to know! Just like some of you want to know where to find a great preview for Toy Story 3 -- ask and you shall receive, HERE.

HEROES GO BOLLYWOOD

If you've already read our first (so far) Avatar blog , you probably were as surprised as we were to read that James Cameron's blue man movie racked up a two week $560 million box office in India alone - twice it's US haul.  If nothing else already has, Avatar's Indian performance has surely made every studio in Hollywood sit up straight and take notice.  Luckily for our movie makers, India's BOLLYWOOD TV and film industry  isn't the competition  that its audiences are --yet.

We've always been curious about exactly what BOLLYWOOD is, and kinda thought we might not be the only ones.   In a nutshell, here's what we learned, Cliff's Notes style:  Bollywood  is a mash-up of Bombay (now called, Mumbai) and Hollywood, and it's stuck as the name of India's Mumbai-based entertainment mecca. When collectively combined with India's other film-centric operations, BOLLYWOOD is considered to be the world's largest entertainment (movies and TV) industry in terms of the number of movies produced as well as the number of movie tickets sold. 

After Avatar's cash-dump, we don't doubt that one bit.  A couple of other key differences are that India's film industry uses the  Hindi-language, of course, and most Bollywood productions are melodramatic song and dance flicks.  That doesn't make them Hollywood musicals; picture Sylvester Stallone breaking out with  a catchy tune and a twirl after his big win in Rocky, and you'll be on the track.

BOLLYWOOD has also earned a reputation for its close knock-off's of popular American movies and television shows.  We got a kick out of Bolly's version of NBC's Heroes  -- (which, by the way, we're hoping you caught last night).   As you can tell from the poster itself -- quite similar in composition to NBC's initial ad campaign --  India's Heroes is an entirely different ballgame from our own.  The show's tag-line and main characters' goal to travel the country and discover national pride removes any doubt that the Mumbai-made Heroes isn't every bit steeped in 'India' and not in the adventures of Sylar, Hiro, and Claire.   Like most other Indian entertainment we've seen, Heroes is very much a portrait of that country's culture. [Want more Bollywood? Go HERE]

You can tell a lot of about a place from their movie posters and ad campaigns. We still like Save The Cheerleader, Save The World -- NBC's Heroes first catchy tag - way more than its Bollywood brother.  But we're not exactly sure what Saving A Cheerleader really says about our culture to  outside nations.  If the world economy was controlled by the National Football League, that'd be a different thing all-together. 

AVATAR: Worldwide Numerology (Part I)

James Cameron's newest achievement, Avatar, was not tracking well with the comic book movie crowd. Turn the calendar back not two months, and that evidence can be found everywhere, from the columns of online movie critics to popular sci-fi forums  and all the  genre-catering fan-sites in between.   

Despite Cameron's past cinematic successes - most notably Titanic, which took in more than $1.8 billion at the worldwide box office after its release in 1997 - otherwise SFX--hungry fans were showing little interest in Avatar -- and even worse, the media had already begun to write the film's obituary six weeks before its premiere.  Several stories focused on Avatar's biggest - and most dangerous - looming question:  Can  20th Century Fox make money on a film based on an original, unfamiliar story, with no Hollywood superstars, a vanishing DVD market, and a price tag approaching $500 million?   

Hit the Holiday Season fast-forward, and while some questions still remain, all reports of Avatar's demise have been proved extremely premature.  Lead by Avatar,  Christmas weekend box office sales totaled  a record-setting $278 million overall.  Avatar, in its second week, contributed $75 million to the X-Mas jackpot, with newly-opened Sherlock Holmes adding just over $64.  Fox's Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel, which the studio had positioned as a financial safety-cushion for Avatar should it fail, actually came in third, earning Fox another $50 million.  And as of last weekend, Avatar's 15-day total has surpassed $300 million domestically; worldwide, the film has now earned over $620 million. 

Closer to the hearts of superhero movie lovers, Avatar's first weekend haul of $75.6 million narrowly surpassed Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, which earned $75.2 million the first weekend it opened in July, 2008.  Avatar's well on-track to unseat another superhero's record this weekend, too:  Spider-Man's $45 million weekend earnings  after its third week of release.  As of this blogging, Box Office Mojo reports that Avatar's Friday proceeds were $25.2 million.  All we can say is, Batman's got every right to be surprised.

Instead of just dumping Avatar's facts and figures into this blog, our hope is to offer a little insight into this movies astronomical performance.  For example, Avatar's earned even more money in India than it has domestically -- in its first two weeks, the take-home pay was $560 million.    

Look for our analysis next week, dabblers.  Meanwhile, we're calling on all of you to help us out. What are your thoughts about Avatar's success? Where does the hype and over-the-top ticket sales come from?  If you've seen the movie, did you like it? How would you rank it among your all-time faves? Does it even make the list?  And would you give this movie an Academy Award for Best Picture?  Write in, let us hear from you with your Back Issues! Thanks, everyone!