Avatar (2009)

Avatar (2009) is a movie from producer, director and writer James Cameron.

Here is the trailers:

0. Early trailer (this trailer just give some early idea about what to expect from the movie)

1. First trailer


2. Second trailer (this trailer really resembles the whole story from the beginning until the climax)

From 2nd Trailer, you can tell roughly how the story will go and end. James Cameron did not direct any movie since he finished his last movie (Titanic) about 12 years ago (1997), so some people doubted his touch. The storyline is criticized because of its similarity with other movies such as Braveheart (1995), Dances with Wolves (1990), or a disney's story, Pocahontas. The actors and actresses, as you can see, are mostly not from my A-list (at least I could not tell mostly who they were, for example Sam Worthington?, even though I have watched many hollywood movies). The movie is in 3D which means the viewers are supposed to wear the stupid-looking glasses which make people has to pay more (for 3D presentation) and the movie looks less bright. Those are some reasons to not watch Avatar.

After screening in theaters for weeks:

1. Avatar is rated 8.6/10 by more than 170 thousands IMDB users, it gets 82% by Tomatometer, it become the trending topic for days in Twitter.
2. Avatar won 2 Golden Globes (2010), including The award for Best Motion Picture - Drama.
3. Avatar broke box office records in many countries (7 consecutive weeks in North America Box Office with more than 600 million dollars gross) and become the highest grossing movie all the time (more than 2 billion dollars worldwide).

How could that possibly be?

1. About timing. Global economics downturn started in 2008. That triggered many studios to postpone or cancel some movie productions in 2008 and early 2009. The impact was there are fewer considerable good movies in 2009. Avatar, that was labelled as big-budget movie, came near the end of the year when most studios had already run out of big movies. It was a holiday season and in this period people go to the theatre. There people didn't have many choices, so they watched Avatar. That went until early 2010.
2. About the movie (product) for most people, including myself. Avatar is offering a new experience that many other movies did not. It's the 3D experience. Before Avatar there were not many 3D movies and there was no movie with full 3D that looks realistic. It is also the first time big-budget movie was made in 3D. Combined with the director's previous portfolios, huge special effect, proven-to-success story, long duration and other technical aspects, there are so many reasons to watch Avatar. The early trailer gave people expectations and the movie could fulfill the expectations. It leads to the viewers' satisfaction (proven by IMDB user rating, Tomatometer result, reviews, et cetera).
3. About marketing. Distributor for this movie is The Twentieth Century Fox which is a subsidiary of News Corp which business is in media. It continuously pushed stories about Avatar before the movie was launched and continuously did that. It gave people stories to tell or, for the company, it's a free advertisement.
4. About the viewer (consumer). PG-13 rating makes the movie accessible by a broad range of age consumers. After experiencing the movie, satisfy consumers would possibly generate word-of-mouth, for example telling others about their experience and suggesting the movie both directly (by speaking) or indirectly (by posting in social site like blog, forum, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) Furthermore, if they are blown away by the 3D effect and want to watch a 3D movie again, there were no other choice at that time, so most likely they will re-watch Avatar.

Watch James Cameron's Avatar in theatre and be part of record breaking history (later you can tell your children about these too)! LOL.