clsteve
"It takes a very long time to become young..."
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2012
Pretty sure that's exactly what I said.You could argue about merchandising and the first film, I'm not sure how much Cameron pursued the merchandising and marketing element, but I would guess Disney would nudge more in that direction. I would go as far as saying that had this partnership existed 6 or 7 years ago, the merchandising aspect of the first film would've went far beyond what it was.
The first Avatar did not generate any merchandising opportunities. Cameron is now in the Theme Park business. Retail is key to the success of a themed, immersive Land. Disney are the masters of which formulas of movie/character/merchandise combinations achieve Theme Park success. Disney wouldn't be in this partnership unless they were 100% confident that the coming movies fit the formula for Theme Park success.
So, how "Disney" will the new movies be? (and, I don't mean that in a bad way, at all). How much of that Disney partnership, and need for merchandising will show up in character/plot dev?
The first Avatar had the visuals for a themed land and the rides. But zero on the merch side. And, there are those gift shops that need those things guests want to buy. Disney, I'm sure want those to be things that the kids are screaming at Mom and Dad to get for them. Somewhere in the movies he's going to need something unique for that restaurant, as well.
It's an historically unique occurrence in this business:a series of films written, developed, and filmed concurrent with Parks development. To the point of one holding the other up.
When you look at Cameron's Film history, it's not really one that's been "Disney kid friendly", do you think? Now in a partnership with the arguably most "kid friendly", "Princess creating" Theme Park Company in the world. Both of whom are not known to be the easiest entities to work with, either. How that dynamic plays out in the Park and the movie could give a lot of insight into who's the top dog driving the relationship
Personally, I hope Cameron gets to keep some of his "edge" - he's great at it - even all the way back to the campy "Escape From New York" days . I mean, AK is about Nature and Nature's a dangerous place. AK does have some of that edge already with The Yeti and EE, and Dinosaur. A little "edge" in AvatarLand, with a bone or 2 thrown to the boys of the world plot and merch-wise, wouldn't be bad at all. It's were Cameron's done his best work.