floating jellyfish type creatures. Certainly there are.

Ya at night time. You are right.

Anyways this movie is very very very different. Not sure if general audience will want to watch something so different. Hopefully it is very good different and not speed racer different.

did u see the clips? Those creatures look like small versions of dragons and there ARE floating creatures. Like small jellyfish but floating in air.

I can't make good comparisons on anything until I see some footage of the film. But from the story, sci fi seems more applicable for now though it could be marketed as a fantasy down the line or a romance epic (not sure yet).

I'm not saying that it can't do $400 m, but I do think it would have to absolutely sweep the Oscars to do so. It's always a good idea for huge films to have a trailer on summer tentpoles to get more exposure. With us going into August, it is likely that Avatar won't be attached to any film to make $150 m + until at least November. November is very likely going to be the month of New Moon, with its huge buzz. The studio really needs to put the trailer out soon so that it can get huge exposure. But if it just starts making the rounds with mainstream moviegoers in November, its marketing could get lost in a New Moon shuffle. That's where December legs come in.

I'm not convinced that it will have a monster opening weekend just yet because we haven't seen any footage and mainstream moviegoers haven't heard much about it yet. But the studio really needs to get stuff out there asap imo.

ew, appalling comparisons consider James Cameron transcends all genres.

One example of completely... how to call it... arbitrary argumentation? Just because many sci-fi movies were released that weren't appealing to mainstream audiences doesn't mean that december is not a good month for sci-fi movies.

December is not a good month for sci-fi movies.

Dude don't blame fox for lack of marketing. James Cameron specifically asked fox to not show anything and btw he rejected 6-7 trailers that fox made. James is basically running the show. Hell he said in some interview that he doesn't want to reveal too much until the movie comes out.

Riiiight...

Haha you can always count on BJ.

Rumors that were later debunked i believe.

Yes, so that means its legs will be great, but it isn't necessarily a slam dunk to break the December weekend record then as moviegoers will know little about it before that time. It could very well easily break it by a mile though if the studio is aggressive enough.

I think people are misreading my general feelings on Avatar. I do feel that it will do amazingly well. But throwing out $500 m predictions is a bit too excessive. I still see potential for a $400 m film if it sweeps the Oscars ($400 m is no longer a once every few years event). King Kong was also supposed to do $350 m, $400 m, but it did $218 m and was seen as hugely disappointing (partially because Narnia overperformed and made it look worse). Sometimes too huge expectations can ruin a film's box office run. Would $350 m for this really be a disappointment? Based on some people's expectations, yes!

Name a very successful Sci-Fi film released in December outside of I Am Legend, which again, starred Will Smith, the biggest draw in Hollywood, bigger than Mr. James Cameron.

Hmm, as I recall it, there weren't too many $350m+ predictions for Kong at all? There might have been a bit of a frenzy in the few days before its release when it was getting really great early reviews and showed up on the AFI and BFCA lists (with some saying it would be a massive hit), but I think most were thinking $250-300m.

When the project was first announced, I think expectations were simply that it would be another $200m+ film for Jackson. Not saying it wasn't a disappointment on some level (internationally it certainly was), but I think you're overstating how big expectations were for it. It certainly was overshadowed by Narnia, though.

As for Avatar, yeah, I have a hard time seeing how this will go without at least seeing a trailer. I know expectations seem sky high amongst a few here, but some of the statements by Cameron himself (saying the movie itself won't be revolutionary) and the sort of un-enthused response from ComicCon (saying that it still looks very much like a CGI film) don't inspire me with confidence in uber-blockbuster predictions. Plus, I think sci-fi romance has always been something of a hard sell.

Well it was the most expensive film of all time when it was released. I know that there were plenty of $300 m + expectations for it, though maybe $350 m was upper end.

That's rewriting history. Show me those predictions, please (BJ doesn't count ). At most, those that supported it the most were in the $300m club.

Reading through the thread, yeah most people were predicting something in the $220m-280m range. It was only in the few days prior to its release when it was getting a wave of great buzz from early reviews/talk of awards attention that people started thinking $300m+ was possible.

Not saying it wasn't a disappointment, but I don't think it's fair to say expectations were in the $350-400m range. I'd say expectations for Avatar at this point seem much higher than they were for Kong.

Kong is eerily similar to this. Superb FX, HUGE director, follow up to a Best Picture, love story.

Had to wait a while for a trailer for both...

Meh, I predicted both Narnia and Potter to pound the ape into the ground anyway, which they did.

kong was about a brain-dead ape. humans trump, and the aliens in avatar are humanoid enough not to scare people off.

An ape is closer to a human than an AVATAR.

Btw I think this movie will either be huge in India thanks to the name OR the religious groups might start protesting about how they ruined the meaning of the sacred word etc. and demand for ban of the movie. Though rather than hurting the movie I hope it benefits from the controversy.

Easy:

Star Trek: The Motion picture was released in December 1979 and made 82 million, which was very big at that time.

Three other middle-level scifi films have been released in December. All were called Star Trek. Two were hits, one bombed.

So all in all December seems to have a very good track record for Scifi releases.

Other than that, I can't even think of any big or middle-level December scifi releases.

That was pathetic.

You're now officially the worst member of KJ.