Avatar 2: it takes a miracle at the box office not to ruin Disney. For James Cameron it would be the third

There’s only one movie worth talking about this Christmas, and it is Avatar 2: The Trail of Water. And above all for extra-cinematic reasons. its director, James Cameronand its production company, the Disneyare at the end of a ten-year journey and an apparently suicidal plan: a sequel which comes 13 years too late, without the novelty that turned the first film into the biggest box office hit in cinematic history (the 3D, that future that would conquer cinemas and living rooms) and with hardly anyone remembering exactly who the characters or the plot of that megalithic blockbuster in the fictional world of Pandora were. All for an estimated cost of over 350 million euros. And the most expensive film in history and any receipts below €2 billion will be considered a bankruptcy. The estimate comes from Cameron himself who, as he declared to GQ a few months ago, he personally told Disney that Avatars 2 represented “the worst business model in the history of cinema”.

That is, it must compete both with its current record (Avatars is still at the top of the chart that only the last film of the Avengers managed to get close: 2.922 billion dollars, almost 2 billion euros.2.8 billion euros at current exchange rates), as well as with his previous record, Titanic (2.187 billion dollars, almost 2.1 billion euros, currently in third place of all time), the latter only to “cover expenses”. The plan is even crazier: while the sequel comes out, Cameron will finish shooting Avatars 4, (the 3 is already in post-production) and will prepare the filming of the fifth chapter. The plan foresees the release of the next sequels in 2024, 2026 and 2028. And now it’s too late to back out.

In its favor, the return of a world more protagonist of its characters, Pandora, more than 3,500 visual effects and the certainty that no one understood 3D and computer graphics like Cameron (the latter can be demonstrated by reviewing almost all of his films since the 90s, starting with terminator 2, whose special effects have aged very little). The self-proclaimed “king of the world” from the night he conquered the Oscars with Titanic he’s 68 and there’s no doubt he can do it again.

It would have been the third: Titanic it would represent the end of Cameron’s career. A disastrous film, which brought in over 200 million dollars (unheard of in 1997) for a film whose ending everyone knew: the sinking ship. But the romance between Jack (Leonardo Dicapriothe only one who couldn’t celebrate the Oscars because he wasn’t even nominated) and Rose (Kate Winsletoverwhelmed by the size of production and the pneumonia that she had taken on the set) has broken a roof that today seems normal when it comes to blockbusters: a billion at the box office. No one had ever done it before.

Titanic then it lasted a long time. A folly that the executives of Fox wanted to cut to make it more commercial: three and a quarter hours. It’s a fact worth remembering now that everyone thinks that Avatars 2with a similar length, is too long. Avatars it lasts almost two and a quarter hours. It was another suicide. A film made to be shown in 3D theaters, hitherto non-existent, with a new franchise And blue alien characters. The first film to pass – and break through – the threshold of 2 billion. A figure that Titanic has finally caught up, on the occasion of its re-release in 2012, three years after the release of Avatars. And neither is the bittersweet return of Star Wars managed to eclipse it: alone The Force Awakens and the last two films of the Avengers have reached these heights. And the revenues of Titanic And Avatars they are not adjusted for inflation.

Avatars 2 it also has an advantage: it will come out in China, which was not known until almost the last minute and which has dragged down most of the current blockbusters: none of the last seven Marvel films has managed to get a slot in a country increasingly averse to Western cinema, with a number of releases very limited, and nobody cares about Disney. China brought more than €250m at the box office to the previous film, a figure that could easily multiply 13 years later.

The main trump card of this comeback also has to do with his previous successes. Shortly after the filming of Titanic, Kate Winslet she had promised in the headlines that she would never work with James Cameron again, unless she was paid a lot. Twenty five years later Titanicit is estimated that he received at least six million euros for his part in Avatars 2, and which will take part in the proceeds. Lots of money. Basically the timeless story of James Cameron, a genius behind the camera who understands what the industry is all about. Something that he made Hollywood understand the day he presented himself to Fox executives to sell them Aliens: as he confirmed, his presentation consisted of adding an «s» to the original title, Aliens, so as to indicate that there was now more than one creature. “But it translates to this,” she said, adding a vertical bar to that letter: a dollar sign.