He makes a point.
ST is looking better and better, I'd say 60m looks really good right now, and still think 75m+ is very likely. Add the presumed fantastic legs, and you can easily hit the 250m I was calling for way back in jan/feb. and that's a lot of money. I still think Avatar is a huge wild card, and could hit 400m+ but may not even hit 200m, it's just impossible to tell right now. So there's a chance critch has been right on for months.
I'm still leaning towards Avatar being huge, but this thread is far from a joke.

Its a joke because nobody has any clue what Avatar will bring or how it will be marketed. We don't even know what it is actually about. Comparing Star Trek with a complete wildcard (this film cost $200M I heavily doubt FOX will rest until it at least makes $300M) is pointless.

There's plenty of Avatar chat and threads around here. There's tons of threads on movies just announced. Avatar is 7 months away, and SHOULD have had at least a teaser out there by now. And we do know what Avatar is about. The scriptment has been all over the net for years. That's why I'm taking the pessimistic stance, the story is not exactly fantastic, hard sci-fi doesn't sell well in the holidays, if at all, Cameron hasn't done a damn thing in over a decade, and we've all heard the "OMG IT LOOKS AMAZING LIKE NOTHING BEFORE" stuff before. Add in a busy season (Christmas Carol, Lovely Bones, and Sherlock Holmes, not to mention the Oscar movies) and I don't see room for Avatar to hit much more than 200 at best.

Not to mention that Star Trek has exceeded even the most fervent Trekkie's wildest dreams, and has ended up with a higher RT % than The Dark Knight. I've personally seen it twice and going back for thirds tonight. Word of Mouth is there. Trailer was brilliant. Marketing is flawless. And the movie is amazing. Now lets see how the box office goes.

The main thing Avatar has to worry about is that it's coming from FOX. It looks like the studio has a perfect recipe to fuck up every one of its releases lately.

Well, Wolverine appears to be doing well at least...

Fox won't effect it. Cameron has enough pull where they just give him a blank check.

Great opening for Trek and great WOM. Looks like Avatar would definately have to clear 200, maybe 225, though of course way too early to tell. I feel even more confident.

Avatar will have trek beat in less than 14 days.

If it happens, it's not going to happen that quickly. Course, I think 200 is the absolute ceiling for this movie.

Going into Memorial Day, looks like a $250-$270 total after all is said and done, though legs could push it north of 300 since June is pretty light and Terminator looks to trip on the starting line.

Meanwhile, with under 7 months to go, there has still yet to be one frame of footage or any stills released from Avatar. Rumor is that a teaser will be on Ice Age, but said teaser will not show any of the effects other than a shot of the planet. That better be one hell of an impressive planet.

Time to jump on the bandwagon.

Good call from you. Atleast you are half way there (Star Trek being huge). I think Avatar will do well and it will be close - but I can see Avatar falling short of $270m. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

But I'll jump on the bandwagon now and go for a narrow win by ST.

Nope Avatar will do 275-400 and I think ST is doing between 250-260.

http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2 ... ns-avatar/

It seems that AVATAR will have an 11 week run at IMAX theaters...

It won't mean much when it bombs. Mainly just a waste of space.

Interestingly, this weekend was the weekend that Avatar was originally scheduled to come out. Back in 1997, Titanic was scheduled to open July 4th weekend against MIB (and Home Alone 3) but it moved to December. Avatar has followed suit.

Highly doubt it will bomb. The effects and such will bring in enough people to get it to King Kong levels, if they are up to the ridiculous amount of hype. But those theatres are going to be very, very empty after the holiday season, and if the fact that the theatre Imax isn't really Imax hits the mainstream, it's not going to do a damn thing.

6 Months to release, and as of today the only images we have of the movie are video game snapshots that don't represent crap. Meanwhile, Star Trek is aiming to be around $240 million after the upcoming weekend, with July 4th coming, although Transformers will likely kill it off before 250 hits.

six months until its release, and its range is what, 100-500m? I feel like when you're in that situation, things usually end up closer to the 100 than the 500

I hope Cameron shocks us with something extraordinary when he unleashes the trailer, because after all this hype, I expect nothing less.

I'm hearing a new wave of rumors that AVATAR will be delayed to Summer 2010 because there are not enough 3D screens worldwide...

Again, these are only rumors in distribution circles and they are not new (they started for the first time when Fox moved up ALVIN to Xmas 09, but those rumors are re-emerging...)

Personally, I think they're false - Fox could never get an 11 week IMAX run in the summer...

5 Months, starting to get some concept art, though nothing major and IMO nothing that impressive. Comic con next week, but who knows if they're going to release anything for those that aren't going and wanting to both stand in line and brave the 'New Moon' crowd. Meanwhile, Star Trek is pretty much gone from theatres, and will end up with 253-254 million. Luckily for the Avatar fans, that's a lot more than anyone including myself was expecting.

Best Picture nominee, $300 Million gross by New Year's. Sounds logical to me.

All Hail Avatar.

This pic just screams, "You know who I am? I'm fuckin' James Cameron!"

I don't have much to say, I just wanted this comment to be seen twice.

He does look like a guy that is fucking James Cameron.