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Filmmakers React to Avatar, $3.5M Midnight

Published by Jeff Leins on: December 18th, 2009

On Wednesday, James Cameron hosted a screening and party for Avatar for several filmmakers and industry types.  Variety grabbed a few reaction quotes from a few recognizable names:

Steven Spielberg: “The most evocative and amazing science-fiction movie since ‘Star Wars.’

“Simpsons” creator Matt Groening: “I feel like this is a landmark in the history of cinema: it’s great storytelling using completely artificial means.”

Danny DeVito: “Ohmigawd, that’s off the charts, blown out of the park.”

Michael Bay: “[It] puts you in another world, and that’s the highest praise.”

Michael Mann: “There’s before this movie and after this movie.”

Update: Here are my thoughts on the film.

In approximately 2,000 locations last night, the epic sci-fi drama debuted to $3.5 million from the early showings alone.  The estimated figure isn’t within the top of all-time (The Twilight Saga: New Moon set the record last month with $26.3 million), but it’s a strong start for a sci-fi movie that will likely stick around in theaters for a while.

Fox is spinning the number as larger than Star Trek’s midnight gross, which is a fair comparison and could mean Avatar is headed to an equally impressive $79 million opening weekend Trek made in May. Experts are predicting $80 million through Sunday, which would set the record for best December weekend over 2007’s I Am Legend.

The 3-D theaters are reportedly packed and selling out across the country, leaving the 2D theaters sparsely attended. It was sold since the beginning as a spectacle and a “game changer,” so it’s no surprise fans want to see it in the way Cameron intended.

  • conno
    Hmm please guys,please don't spoil this movie for intended to playing with colors. I'm not white,but I love this movie. This movie is a master piece, James Cameron he did his best and he did an amazing job. So please, leave the colors alone.
  • Name
    Yeah, Hmmmm, I'm a citizen of the world with surprise @ the color thing but I just can't help but let you know what flavor I am. Let's not go there either. There is no metaview that can condescend and be neutral. The film was an excellent effort of sharing a personal viewpoint. People blog here based on the thread they read. So leaving the color thing alone in my daily life works for me but it appears not for steve_real who started this "deeper"analysis of hating on the white dude. Who cares? Well, if you put it out there, expect a response. The neutral thing is an appeal to some imaginary ultimate authority as if you have it all figured out. In other words, who do you think you are? Please don't bring in J.C. after you score a touchdown or vote or watch a sci-fi movie. But hey, there it is, the human condition. Great movie.
  • humanbeing
    If Jake Scully had been of any other ethnicity than white, the transformations of his "being" into the Na vi body would be seen as washing out the ethnicity of whatever group had been portrayed to make it more palatable to a white audience. Putting the special glasses on Levar Burton in yesteryears Star Trek was also seen as racist. A step-removed theatrical device to distract white audiences from his, gulp, blackness. Now surely someone can hate on anything outside of their own body/being or sphere of control. I went to see this movie for the experience of the effort put into a fantasy with the latest digital technology. I suppose in the future, we can put on glasses that show ourselves as the main character so we won't be offended, unless of course, it's a true depiction of ourselves. I'll go see this again to view other details as a technological query, not for a story line fix where the "white" dude saves the "don't get-it" natives. Good thing they weren't black.
  • mediamessiah
    PS: The natives were depicted as being our teachers in the end, although we came to them as their teachers in the beginning of the film. The resulting climax of the story, offers the irony, that it is the Na'vi who have educated us, the human race!!!
  • mediamessiah
    This movie isn't racist, this film, on the contrary, serves to educate racists...and inform them that we don't have it right, the truth however is, the so-called technologically unadvanced natives have it right...as they haven't lost their connection to nature and the spirituality in it. The movie is saying that it is they, the natives, who are closer to spirituality, and what it truly is to be a decent, honest, loyal, loving, intelligent and wise being. That is the core of being...human, and thus, what it is to be closest to God. First it begins by learning to see others for who they are on the inside, not just on the outside, and judgng them by their contributions/actions to others, a mark of one's true inner beauty, as the observer, and as the observed.
  • it's cowboys vs. indians, how is it racist when the story defends the indian viewpoint?
    and my theater didn't sell out...I can't believe it, it has 3-D, i've lost a lot of respect for my town. though at least it's a college town so maybe everyone just left for the holidays.
  • This is 21st century "Dances with Wolves," taken up a notch. The anti-imperialist angle reverberates throughout the movie.

    It is a visual spectacle to experience and delivers a timely message

    A+++!!!
  • steve_real
    I saw Avatar yesterday and I can't help to notice the rascists aspects to the movie, especially in the language and music. It reminded me of the Heart of Darkness were the "White man" brings civilization to the "Black Africans" and you can hear this in Africaner style in the music and lanquage. It's a rascist movie no doubt about it, but I liked it anyways. The "White man" reigned superior to the "Black man" in the end. Check it out and tell me if I'm wrong...
    Hair extensions Jim?
    I can't be the only one seeing 19th century colonialism.
  • jeffleins
    They're natives. I don't really see how that's racist.
  • steve_real
    This is a classic scenario you've seen in Hollywood epics from Dances With Wolves, Dune, District 9 and The Last Samurai, where a white guy manages to get himself accepted into a closed society of people of color and eventually becomes its most awesome member.

    If we think of Avatar and its ilk as white fantasies about race, what kinds of patterns do we see emerging in these fantasies?

    A white man who was one of the oppressors switches sides at the last minute, assimilating into the alien culture and becoming its savior.
    These are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color - their cultures, their habitats, and their populations.

    The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the "alien" cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become "race traitors," and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed.

    This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It's not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it's not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It's a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside.
  • ntep
    One can see this through racist "eyes", but I think the overall message is about the evils of colonialism and abuse of power . . . the abusers happened to be Europeans during the Colonial expansion, but the overall story is about abuse of power and destruction of cultures. The story continues to this day!

    NP
  • awhiteguy
    It seemed to me that the 'white guy' doesn't become the leader because the others cannot, it is because he best knows how to defeat his own, he understands the paradigm whereas the others do not. Similar movies of the past seemed to promote a 'better than thou' attitude, I was grateful that Avatar did not. I think 'Dances With Wolves' was like that too - showed real appreciation for all beings! When Sam Worthington's character described how his people would keep on coming, it brought to mind a similar scene from Dances.
  • Big Nick 5000
    I think you have a valid point about some white guilt movies but I don't think this was the case in this film. I felt like it was more political then race based. It seemed more like "Tree Huggers" vs "Big Business and Military Might". (mini spoiler) Don't forget that Michelle Rodriguez and Dileep Rao also switched sides and fought on behalf of the Na'vi
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