I’m sure that with the screwy, Machiavellian Hollywood accounting practices, the bean counters could figure a way to say that Avatar actually didn’t make any money. I mean, it’s not going to benefit from that post-Oscar Best Picture win, now is it? It’d be no surprise that James Cameron and all the guys involved in the flick could be heading for the welfare line sometime in the near future. So it’s heartening that Fox has decided to help out Cameron and all his gang by re-releasing the film, with some extra footage likely, this summer, in an effort to get a few more bucks and hopefully get into the black with this thing…
OK, so yeah, that whole notion is horseshit. Avatar made an assload of coin and I’m sure $700 million + and counting is a hell of a consolation prize for the lack of gold statues. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t more money to be made, which is clearly why Fox is going for this. And why not? Re-releases have been pretty good to franchises like Star Wars after all. The thinking behind this move for Fox is to expand upon the film’s 3D / IMAX take, which was hampered by the release of Alice in Wonderland in 3D. Avatar’s current slice of its total record-breaking take in that medium is around $127 million to date.
Concerning the extra footage to be included, the THR.com article speculates thusly: As for how much additional footage Cameron might add to “Avatar,”
the guessing began early Thursday when Imax CEO Richard Gelfond
said during a Gabelli & Co. investor conference in New York
that Cameron had about 40 minutes of additional material that
didn’t make the theatrical cut. He also predicted a rerelease,
which he said probably would occur in the fall. Cameron had said that he had 10-12 minutes of extra scenes that he
cut and could quickly put through postproduction and have ready to
add to a director’s cut for a theatrical reissue or as an extra on
the DVD release. One scene has to do with Jake Sully’s avatar
proving himself to the Na’vi people; the other involves a native
festival during which tribe member Tsu’tey gets drunk.
So how extra money are we talking about? Cameron was in New York this
week for a demonstration of 3D TV and told USA Today, “The word
we’re getting back from exhibitors is we probably left a couple
hundred million dollars on the table as a result.” So let’s hope that they can make up that money and feed their families and such.