Thompson on Hollywood

New Avatar Trailer is Up

I know there are a lot of Avatar naysayers out there but when the hairs rise on the back of my neck I know there's something real going on. I felt it with Twilight and I feel it with this latest Avatar trailer which went up on Yahoo at 10 am PST (video on jump).

By Anne Thompson
|
October 29, 2009 5:18 AM
|
5 Comments

More:

Avatar's Cameron, Shutter Island's Lehane and Transformers' Murphy Talk, Mirren Wins Rome

All the hours James Cameron spent with The New Yorker's Dana Goodyear did not yield the results the director must have hoped for. The 11,000-word profile takes the easy angle on the director--he's an asshole control freak who eats his crew for breakfast. I am so tired of this cliche. The piece digs into many delicious details of the director's career and hard work on Avatar. (And Fox is still trying to hold the media to a fake mid-200-million figure--it's far more.) But while Cameron is certainly demanding and is putting Fox through the ringer yet again, he puts his ass on the line each time.

By Anne Thompson
|
October 26, 2009 12:52 PM
|
1 Comment

More:

Avatar Watch: Action Figures, Concept Art, Novel

While James Cameron and the VFX wizards at Weta Digital in Wellywood are trying to finish the last big effects sequences in Avatar--which is set for December 18 release--Cameron is also working on many of the ancillary marketing and licensing sidelines that will help sell this pricey 3-D movie. (The official sticker price is $237 million, but we can safely assume that that figure is 1) low and 2) counting.)

By Anne Thompson
|
October 6, 2009 6:52 AM
|
1 Comment

More:

Empire Covers Avatar

The last wide-circulation English-language movie magazine standing is published in the UK: Empire. So that's where you go for your early Avatar cover story .

By Anne Thompson
|
August 28, 2009 6:08 AM
|
0 Comments

More:

Avatar Day

James Cameron himself wasn't happy that the Avatar online trailer preceded the Avatar Day IMAX 3-D screenings on Friday. The reason that happened, according to Fox, is that the trailer went out at the same time as the first 10 AM screenings in New Zealand Tokyo on the other side of the world. It was a synchronous global release. The Apple site was so overwhelmed with clicks that it crashed at first. More than 4 million people streamed the Avatar trailer on that first day, breaking the prior record of 1.7 million set by Star Trek. So that was good news for Fox. Curiosity was high.

By Anne Thompson
|
August 22, 2009 6:40 AM
|
5 Comments

More:

Avatar Trailer Update

The response to the Avatar teaser trailer that Fox released Thursday was mixed.

By Anne Thompson
|
August 20, 2009 10:14 AM
|
8 Comments

More:

Avatar Week: Photo Gallery

I'm obsessed with Avatar. (The movies of James Cameron are moving inexorably up my flickchart.) The question for me is whether Cameron's ambitious mix of 3-D live-action and performance capture --which cost Fox way more than $200 million-- breaks out beyond the Comic-Con faithful. It feels very sci-fi thriller, which is fine for District 9. But Cameron knows how to reach a wide audience. Avatar is also a romance set on the exotic planet Pandora.

By Anne Thompson
|
August 20, 2009 2:12 AM
|
8 Comments

More:

Avatar Day, Sony Acquires Parnassus, Tarantino, Screwball Ladies

We've been tracking news that Sony Pictures Classics would release The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus this fall. But as the NY-based specialty division rigorously refuses to confirm these talks, the rumors spread around the internet until Variety figured out a way to write the story so that Sony Worldwide Acquisitions Group "is in advanced talks" to acquire the movie for SPC to release. It's easy to run a rumor, harder to run it down.

By Anne Thompson
|
August 13, 2009 6:52 AM
|
1 Comment

More:

Cameron on Avatar, Roberts Reads Books, Leibovitz's Problems

The LAT's Geoff Boucher talks Avatar with James Cameron.

By Anne Thompson
|
August 11, 2009 1:20 AM
|
0 Comments

More:

Cameron's Blue Avatar, Swinton Hauls Movies, Moore Traverses Fest, Ebert's Best Movies

James Cameron’s new poster for Avatar is an extreme close-up of a blue Nav'i alien from the Planet Pandora. It’s an arresting image that makes you stop and pay attention. Cameron wants you to know he’s taking you somewhere you’ve never been before. Jeff Wells hates this poster. There’s plenty of time between now and December 18 for the Fox marketers to figure out their message. I suspect that one reason they’re showing the 15 minutes in IMAX theaters on August 21 is that they know showing the film is their best approach.