Accelerating Future

Avatar: Second Highest-Grossing Film of All-Time? Tuesday, Jan 5 2010 

BCI Michael Anissimov 7:30 pm

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3 Responses to “Avatar: Second Highest-Grossing Film of All-Time?”

1. Ryan says:

   January 5, 2010 at 7:48 pm

   It might; but it might also make these technologies less accepted.

   The movie had a somewhat new-agey, anti-technology and industry vibe.

   People, after seeing it, might be inclined to pick up a book with some modern interpretation of Native American spiritualism; and increasingly see technology and industry (intricately linked) as destructive and immoral.

   (Lets give people credit though, they can think for themselves.)

   In any case: I liked the movie, it was enjoyably ( and as an Animator, I loved it.) I hear Cameron plans to make a trilogy out of it, so given its success, we’ll probably see more.

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2. Brian Wang says:

   January 7, 2010 at 2:26 pm

   After 20 days of release. Avatar is the 2nd highest worldwide box office movie (non-inflation adjusted)

   http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

   I am predicting it will hit number one. Somewhat risky prediction. Counting on more “legs” in the foreign markets. Moving up from 67% foreign to 72% or so. Needs $550+ million domestic and $1.3+ billion foreign.

   I am thinking $580 million domestic (with some Oscar boost later this year and not counting a re-release). An exceptionally strong and long Imax run could help push it to $650-700 million domestic. Foreign box office $1.45-1.6 billion is my guess. Thus about 20% chance of first $2 billion movie and 70% chance of beating Titanic for number one.

   Expecting Titanic 3D re-release though.

   http://snarkerati.com/movie-news/is-a-3d-re-release-of-titanic-coming-soon/

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3. Andrew Shevchuk says:

   January 13, 2010 at 12:21 am

   Michael, care to comment on the implications of this story?

   http://edition.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html

   Avatar may have been the catalyst that sets humanity on an inward-directed future. Why explore the cosmos when you can experience in your own mind something more spectacular than anything you’re likely to discover out there? I guess in transhumanism circles this is entirely expected, but now even the non-transhumanist majority is waking up to the reality that exploring the universe (for reasons other than acquiring resources) is comparatively tedious and mundane to exploring the human imagination.

   This places some interesting constraints on the Fermi Paradox too….specifically the likelihood of observing a human-like mind elsewhere in the universe will decrease because it won’t care so much about what’s out there.

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