I think Cameron has an excellent shot at a Best Director nomination. There are basically 3 slots already taken - Jason Reitman, Kathryn Bigelow, and Quentin Tarantino. Cameron not only has a huge crowd-pleaser, it's very obvious what an insanely complicated production it was, and what a personal project it was as well. The Academy eats that stuff up. Also helping Cameron out is the fact that a lot of other potential Oscar challenges have hit major roadblocks: Eastwood might still get in because everyone loves him, but INVICTUS isn't exactly lighting up the Oscar ballots right now. Peter Jackson collapsed when LOVELY BONES got a cold reception, as did Rob Marshall with NINE. Lee Daniels has a chance, but PRECIOUS has cooled off and he's an indie guy from New York, which probably works against his chances a bit. The Coen brothers have a chance, but A SERIOUS MAN seems a bit small and quirky, plus they won very recently.

So, two spots up for grabs between Cameron, Eastwood, Daniels, and the Coen Bros, say.... with Cameron in the pole position.

Predict How Many Days it will take Avatanic to Reach 400m
Enki - 21
-BJ - 22
-DIB2 - 22
-Mark66 - 24
-Rev - 24

Predict How Many Days it will take Avatanic to Reach 500m
Enki - 29
-BJ - 33
-DIB2 - 35
-Rev - 38

Deadline for 400m will be on Monday, Jan 4 2010, as always, post your prediction for a chance at one day of predicting glory

I see the nomination as 100% guaranteed, his directorial work with avatar is by the best of the year.

$16.5 million

your late, whats of with this late posting, its getting annoying.

I kind of forgot that Marshall is really no longer a factor. I think Daniels has a very good chance even though Precious didn't get to the $75-80m range the industry projected.

Rethinking it, unless Eastwood pulls out a sympathy nom., Cameron seems like the 5th nom.

avatar is up big in anchorage, 4 sold out showing on the day and we've just hit prime time, I expect a 5%-15% increase.

I of course think he is #1, I expect a DGA will easy.

avatars performance in anchorage today makes no sense, it just sold out another show, its up at least 20% from yesterday.

That would be interesting if both Kathryn and James get to be nominated.

But I'm concerned that The Dark Knight was not even nominated for picture/director which was a shocker for me. Avatar might fall into the same category.

Cameron is superior to Nolan, his very ambition demands a nomination.

The 10 BP slots definitely helps AVATAR -- although honestly at this point it's tracking more like TITANIC than TDK (at least in terms of award nominations). And Cameron is a "proven" award-winning director as well -- he's not a new kid on the block (like Nolan ).

I'm sure Shenkman and the other Oscar producers are rooting for a Bigelow/Cameron BD challenge -- it's another way to boost interest in the show.

Better than Spike Jonze? He was the best director of the films I saw, but I haven't seen as many as usual.

Completely off-topic, but why doesn't Fellini have a writing credit for Nine?

I don't think Bigelow's big enough for people to actually care. Plus, they don't hate each other.

I don't know, still haven't seen Where the Wild Things Are yet.

as for the fellini Q, that is odd indeed.

$66.5 million 3rd weekend

Yeah, she's not a name. And yeah, they're actually very supportive of each other. Nevertheless, expect a lot of comments about it, and possibly some one-liners from the hosts, if they're both nominated.

expect Cameron to steam roll her when all the votes are tallied

Wednesday: $16.47m

I'm dropping my weekend predict to $68M.

Yes... that's only domestic

Best chart ever

You could say that I am in the "optimistic" side of the spectrum