Why 'Avatar' Might Not Be as Successful as You'd Think

Astronauts may have debunked the age-old myth that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space, but if they were to take a look right now, they might be able to see James Cameron's 'Avatar.' His blue giant has been circling the globe in a neon blur for nearly four weeks now, vacuuming coin-of-the-realm out of the hands of moviegoers from Argentina to the Ukraine.

But, wait. Before we declare 'Avatar' the Greatest Attraction in the Solar System, let's acknowledge the sizable minority of Earthlings who are not impressed.

-- There are people, like myself, who have pointed out that 'Avatar's' supernova box office numbers are skewed by hefty surcharges on tickets to its 3D and IMAX showings, of which most are. If people were paying the same for a ticket to 'Avatar' that they pay to most first-run movies, its current domestic rank would be in the 30s instead of No. 5, where it is now (so, closer to films like 'The Sixth Sense' and 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' than 'Titanic').

-- There are critics, both professional and armchair (not to mention YouTube video producers), who insist that Cameron's script is a rip-off of Disney's 'Pocahontas' and of numerous other adventure tales where a conscience-stricken white man rescues innocent-as-driven-snow natives from his own imperialist people.

-- And there are those increasingly loud voices of people offended by what they believe are 'Avatar's' anti-war, anti-capitalism, anti-American messages. And, some say, the thing is so Al Gorishly pro-environment, it's a wonder Cameron didn't paint the Na'Vi green.

-- Finally, there is a loud contingent of critics who say 'Avatar' is downright racist, that the blue, 10-foot-tall Na'Vi are analogues of American Indians, African natives, Maori and every other indigenous people whose cultures were deemed naive, backward and inferior by white settlers and colonists.

How Big Is Its Box Office, Really?
There is no question that 'Avatar's' bulging box office numbers, which currently have it ranked second behind 'Titanic' on the all-time worldwide earnings list, are largely due to the high, sometimes doubled ticket prices being charged for 3D showings. Typically, 3D prices are from $10 to $15 per adult; the national average for all movies, according to Exhibitor Relations Inc., is $7.50. So far, nearly 80 percent of 'Avatar's' $429 million domestic gross is from 3D or 3D IMAX showings.

A smaller percentage of foreign theaters have 3D capability. Still, 60 percent of the more than $900 million in foreign ticket sales also came from 3D showings. And as word of mouth has spread, the percentage of people seeing 'Avatar' in 3D has increased in the U.S. and Canada from 71 percent during its opening weekend to 80 percent over its fourth and most recent weekend.

To demonstrate how dramatically the inflated ticket prices affect the relative popularity of 'Avatar' and 'Titanic,' consider these figures: When 'Titanic' hit the $429 million mark in ticket sales in 1998, the average ticket price was $4.69, which factors out to about 90 million tickets sold.

Breaking 'Avatar's' ticket sales into separate 3D and 2D categories, and using respective average ticket costs of $12 and $7.50, the number of butts in seats would be between 35 and 40 million. If each of those people paid the $7.50 average, 'Avatar's' current gross would be between $290 million and $300 million, ahead of 'The Hangover's' $277 million and behind 2009's third-biggest hit, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' ($302 million).

But the fact is most people who see 'Avatar' are not paying $7.50, and if the movie's total passes 'Titanic's' $601 million, it will own the domestic record. Still, I venture that when all is said and counted, 'Avatar' will have been seen by many millions fewer people than 'Titanic.'

Cameron Can't Write, Can He?
No one, other than, perhaps, James Cameron, would describe 'Avatar's' author as a great writer. He is a great technological innovator, but the scripts attributed to him as sole writer -- 'The Abyss,' 'Titanic' and 'Avatar' -- are barely more than the infrastructure for his flights of technological virtuosity. His dialogue is banal and generally humorless, his characters are thin archetypes and the man is tone-deaf when it comes to knowing when a scene has gone on too long.

Other than embarrassing snubs from fellow writers when Oscar nominations are announced, his literary ungainliness has not been a problem for Cameron. 'The Abyss' was nothing more than a B sci-fi movie set in ocean depths, but the invented aliens found there -- remember that crazy, transparent worm? -- were pure dazzlements.

With 'Titanic,' all he needed to achieve was something others had tried and failed to do -- make the sinking of the unsinkable Titanic look real! That his stars, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, managed to enthrall young viewers with their tragic love story was a bonus that, through repeat viewings, carried the movie to its colossal worldwide box office success.

As for the lack of originality in the 'Avatar' script, it is pretty much guilty as charged. Whether it reminds you of 'Pocahontas' or 'Dances With Wolves' or some other White Man Saves the Day Western, it's excuse for a love story is as fresh as the oldest boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back romance you've ever seen. But the love birds' setting on Pandora, well, you haven't seen anything like that before.

For all its weaknesses, I think critics are too harsh on 'Avatar's' story. Its dramatic arc was old before movies were born. I don't think Cameron is that interested in the nuances of his characters; they're there to get you on the roller coaster and, at that, his skills seem even greater than those of Steven Spielberg.

So, no, 'Avatar' will not win an Oscar for original screenplay. Nor will anyone in the cast land on a best acting ballot. But when you're in the theater watching it, especially in 3D, your eyes and mind are too busy taking in the view and the action to care.

Why Does Cameron Hate America?
The conservative political pundit/sometime film critic John Podhoretz foamed at the pen while discussing 'Avatar's' 'mindless worship of a nature-loving tribe and the tribe's adorable pagan rituals, its hatred of the American military and American institutions, and the notion that to be human is just way uncool ...' He went on to say how 'Avatar' is an 'example of how deeply rooted [its] standard-issue counterculture cliches in Hollywood have become by now.'

It is odd to me that the adjective 'knee-jerk' is only applied to liberals. What is it if not knee-jerk that makes conservatives react so quickly to perceived anti-Americanisms buried like so many IEDs throughout Hollywood scripts. Sometimes a story is just a story. There have to be both bad and good guys in drama and it would be a very short story indeed if a human were to venture into an alien environment and be eaten by the natives.

Of course, Podhoretz and his confrere might see that story ending with the American military using overwhelming force to wipe out the cannibals and hang Old Glory from the highest tree. Me, I like my action movies to end with the good guys beating the bad guys, even if -- as in 'Avatar' -- the bad guys are Americans. (Well, Blackwater-type mercenaries working for a corporation that is out to plunder another world for its unique fuel source.)

Get a grip, guys. It's just a movie!

Is 'Avatar' Racist?
I have to admit that I do not find the Na'Vi princess Neyteri attractive. She's blue, she's 10-feet tall and she has a tail. Also, she's not human, which would make sex risky even on Pandora. But if the descendants of indigenous people take the fictional Na'Vi for analogues of actual natives, then they should speak up, as many have, and let the debate begin.

As my Moviefone colleague Gary Susman wrote on this site Monday, 'Avatar' has been seen as being racist against both native cultures and the white man. It's racist against natives, some argue, because it treats the Na'Vi as backwards, naive, marginally civilized, and -- let's get some missionaries in here quick -- pagans. Of course, it's racist against whites because every white in the film -- if you don't count the good scientists and the redemptive hero Jake Sully -- is evil.

Cameron has not made this defense, but let me point out that the closest historical parallel to 'Avatar's' story line may be the arrival in the Western Hemisphere of the three-ship fleet of Christopher Columbus. His mission was to find and bring back gold to Queen Isabella. The corporation in 'Avatar' is on Pandora to find and bring back an energy source that doesn't exist on Earth.

The Na'Vis, like the Caribbean natives visited by Columbus, fear disease from the intruders, and like the Caribbean natives, they face slaughter if they can't or won't give the intruders what they want. I don't know, call me anti-Columbia, but I like the 'Avatar' ending better.

It seems that the most common charge of racism against 'Avatar' has to do with the perception of 'white guilt,' whereby whites try to assuage their guilt over their ancestors' (or their own) sins against people of color by having white heroes rescuing white-abused or oppressed natives. Those offended by the concept of a white knight say that it paints all natives as helpless victims, and in many instances, that's true.

But history is, in fact, replete with acts of human decency among the privileged class acting out against racism and oppression. I don't see that as an entirely bad thing, certainly not in the case of 'Avatar.' The Na'Vi are not treated as backwards people. They're treated as the intelligent life in the universe we've always wondered was out there.

If we ever discovered actual intelligent life in the universe, the creatures would probably look more like the transparent worm in 'The Abyss,' but 'Avatar' is a movie, man. It's just a movie.