What are your percentage odds that Avatarland actually happens?

[dwheaton]

Who says it s a bad franchise?

By a "bad franchise", I'm speaking about viewers' love for the series and excitement about sequels. I do a movie blog and interact with many film fans, and I've never gotten the impression anyone looks at Avatar like they do the top franchises. It made tons of money and was very profitable, but for me it was more of a technical achievement than something I want to see repeatedly.

 

[twebber55]

By a "bad franchise", I'm speaking about viewers' love for the series and excitement about sequels. I do a movie blog and interact with many film fans, and I've never gotten the impression anyone looks at Avatar like they do the top franchises. It made tons of money and was very profitable, but for me it was more of a technical achievement than something I want to see repeatedly.

i REALLY dont want to get into another debate over this but i dont see how anyone could view anything as being bad about the movie.....was it the greatest movie ever of course not....but it was a success on every level commecially (2.8 billion), critically (9 academy award nominations including best picture and best director, 3 wins, and then have record dvd/blue ray sales, how ratings on rotten tomatoes, 40 000 000 face book fans

i mean i get if people didnt like the movie on a personal level than yeah i totally get that but i would bet any amount of money the second film will break a billion when it comes out

to each his own
again not trying to ruffle feathers because im over it on this subject

 

[Reddog1134]

i REALLY dont want to get into another debate over this but i dont see how anyone could view anything as being bad about the movie.....was it the greatest movie ever of course not....but it was a success on every level commecially (2.8 billion), critically (9 academy award nominations including best picture and best director, 3 wins, and then have record dvd/blue ray sales, how ratings on rotten tomatoes, 40 000 000 face book fans

i mean i get if people didnt like the movie on a personal level than yeah i totally get that but i would bet any amount of money the second film will break a billion when it comes out

to each his own
again not trying to ruffle feathers because im over it on this subject

He's not saying it's a bad movie, he's saying it's a bad franchise.

Things like Star Wars are great franchise because the original movie spawned more movies, toys, video games, theme park attractions, etc.

I can't think of a single script line from Avatar that has entered popular culture. But Star Wars gave us:

May the Force be with you.
I got a bad feeling about this.
Never tell me the odds.
Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.
and more

The point being while Avatar and Star Wars might both be great movies, only one has proven to be a great franchise.

Which again, is not to say it won't prove to be a great theme park attraction.

 

[Faldred]

As originally pitched? Virtually zero -- even the FLE project underwent major revisions after initial work started.

In some way, shape, or form? Probably about 90%. That is, almost 100% that they will finish up and open something, but I hold out a small chance that the Avatar connection might be dropped by the time it opens.

 

[twebber55]

He's not saying it's a bad movie, he's saying it's a bad franchise.

Things like Star Wars are great franchise because the original movie spawned more movies, toys, video games, theme park attractions, etc.

I can't think of a single script line from Avatar that has entered popular culture. But Star Wars gave us:

May the Force be with you.
I got a bad feeling about this.
Never tell me the odds.
Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.
and more

The point being while Avatar and Star Wars might both be great movies, only one has proven to be a great franchise.

Which again, is not to say it won't prove to be a great theme park attraction.

I pretty much agree

 

[tjkraz]

He's not saying it's a bad movie, he's saying it's a bad franchise.

Only thing I would add to that is "...so far."

James Cameron clearly has ambitious plans for the franchise. And I'm sure he has shared many of those ideas with Disney higher-ups...things that have not been made public yet.

Part of the delay on Avatar construction may be related to the status of the films. Disney doesn't want to see the planned sequels remain stuck in "development hell" after they commit to a half-billion dollar park investment.

Right now...in June 2013...I agree that Avatar is virtually irrelevant in our pop culture. But it's also the all-time box office leader, highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes, and if any filmmaker has earned the benefit-of-the-doubt it's James Cameron.

If Avatar 2 proves to be another worldwide phenomenon, the risk in waiting is that licensing fees could double or triple. Or Cameron could partner with someone else and Disney misses out altogether.

By going forward now, the compensation package probably takes into account the riskiness of this venture. Additionally Disney could be in a position to debut Avatar-land as the next film hits theaters.

(And if the rumors of a simulator ride are legitimate, I'm sure some consideration has already been given to what it would cost to swap-out the Avatar elements for another overlay if the theme becomes stale in a few years.)

 

[Hoodie]

I haven't seen Avatar so I can't comment as to whether theming a whole land or even a scaled down version would be a good idea or not.

However, I think planning was pushing forward for a full land until Disney obtained Star Wars. I think that may be the reason that suddenly rumors are flying that Avatarland will be scaled down. Disney knows they have to compete with Harry Potter. Avatar was available and workable. However, even the most out of touch person could recognize the Star Wars potential. IMO (which means absolutely nothing) Disney will move forward with any Avatar attraction that was pretty far down the road of development so they don't lose development dollars or get tarnished by dropping Avatar completely and throw any left over money into Star Wars.

 

[Tcrow55]

I, for one, would love to see a Disney Villains Land.

 

[DanBoris]

It's definitely true that you can make a great attraction from a bad franchise. However, Disney is clearly looking to find some way to offer an alternative to Harry Potter. The fact that they're moving so slowly likely indicates they may be doing it but aren't in a hurry.

I give it a 50/50 chance of being there. It seems weird that we're hearing nothing about it, so that makes me wonder if it will ever see the light of day. Adding that to likely plans for Star Wars attractions (a no brainer) at DHS makes me think they may just push it under the rug.

The other possibility is they're doing the planning but will wait to see how Avatar 2 does before committing. They've been very cautious with new attractions lately.

Not wierd at all, we rarely hear much about attractions during the development phase. The big difference with Avatar is that it was announced very early in development whereas most attractions at Disney aren't announced until near the end of development, or in the case of Universal, a few days before they open

 

[tjkraz]

I haven't seen Avatar so I can't comment as to whether theming a whole land or even a scaled down version would be a good idea or not.

However, I think planning was pushing forward for a full land until Disney obtained Star Wars. I think that may be the reason that suddenly rumors are flying that Avatarland will be scaled down. Disney knows they have to compete with Harry Potter. Avatar was available and workable. However, even the most out of touch person could recognize the Star Wars potential. IMO (which means absolutely nothing) Disney will move forward with any Avatar attraction that was pretty far down the road of development so they don't lose development dollars or get tarnished by dropping Avatar completely and throw any left over money into Star Wars.

It was never going to be a "land" on the scale of something like Fantasyland, Adventureland or even Dinoland. The stated budget is around $400 million. That's about half of what was spent on Cars Land at DCA.

If some of that money is earmarked for relocation of FOTL and the character meets, even less will make it into the Avatar environment.

 

[twebber55]

It was never going to be a "land" on the scale of something like Fantasyland, Adventureland or even Dinoland. The stated budget is around $400 million. That's about half of what was spent on Cars Land at DCA.

If some of that money is earmarked for relocation of FOTL and the character meets, even less will make it into the Avatar environment.

Fantasyland was around 400 million and this project will be at least that

 

[tjkraz]

Fantasyland was around 400 million and this project will be at least that

Some estimates have exceeded $600 million.

Fantasyland didn't involve any licensing fees nor the addition of an "E" Ticket. And one of its attractions was cloned from another park, resulting in shared development costs & reduced procurement.

That said, my point was simply that "Avatar Land" was never planned to be a huge addition. It's budget is half of Cars Land, which is a much more elaborate theme park "land."

 

[twebber55]

Some estimates have exceeded $600 million.

Fantasyland didn't involve any licensing fees nor the addition of an "E" Ticket. And one of its attractions was cloned from another park, resulting in shared development costs & reduced procurement.

That said, my point was simply that "Avatar Land" was never planned to be a huge addition. It's budget is half of Cars Land, which is a much more elaborate theme park "land."

Like i ve said at d23 we should know a lot more of what is happening at wdw

 

[LockShockBarrel]

What I'd like to see is the number since Avatar came out. Of course when it first came out it was going to do well. It was something new, something that hadn't been done on that scale before. People were crawling out of the woodwork that wouldn't typically have been going purely because it was new. Then you figure around the same time home theater and tv tech was going crazy so people wanted to bring a movie like Avatar home and see it on their home screen where it was similar to being in a theater.

But fast forward to now, I have to imagine that the interest and numbers have trickled off. Like someone said, you don't see people with Avatar shirts and phone cases and quoting the movies like you do with something like Star Wars. When you have kids that are at all interested in Disney, in all likelihood you're going to show them as many Disney movies as you can stomach, and something like Cars will be included in that. Im sure there's some kids out there that like Avatar but it doesn't have the rewatch factor like other movies do. My favorite movie is Pan's Labyrinth, and I've only seen it maybe 5 times because it's not an easy movie to get through and I think people that like Avatar are the same way. It doesn't mean we like those movies any less than the kid that watches the Little Mermaid over and over (I wore out 2 vhs when I was little watching it over and over) but it does make a difference in how those movies are spread through pop culture.

If Avatarland does happen, I think what will happen is, just like the movie, people will go because it's new. They won't care what the themeing is, they aren't going to seek it out because "omg mom I just have to go to Avatarland" . It'll just be something new with an Avatar paint job. It will only be successful if the ride or attraction itself is amazing.

 

[>Ash<]

I like the concept of AvatarLand, lets be honest the idea works as it fits into the themeing of animal kingdom which is disneys first major factor for looking at building somthing,

the concept around conservation that the film shows is very much what animal kingdom is about, also the story is sci-fi equivelent of pocohontas really, its a similar story.

seeing how disney worked star wars into disney world is proof that disney can use non disney franchises and make them fit into the world of disney,

however with avatarland i thought that they were having real differences with james cameron? i can see this backing out and appearing in UNI to be honest but we will see as time goes on.

if james cameron helps imagineers the project could be the answer to WWHP if they play it well.

i hope it goes to plan but i do have my doubts on the project ever coming out of concept stages.,


i hope that they do the obvious attraction, in the movie we see them entering these capsule bed like things to control the avatar. how cool would it be using microsoft kinect technology if they could recreate that feeling in a virtual reality style game, you enter a standing new version of the control facility and basically you control your own avatar.

or even animatronic avatars would be cool with exhibts featuring animatronic varients of the animals in the movie.

 

[LunarDistortion]

Cameron is never happy, he wasn't happy with Titanic or Avatar which were both critically acclaimed films. To think he would be happy with this is a long shot.

 

[momof2n2]

I feel guilty saying this, but I don't have one iota of interest in Avatarland... would I enter it... of course. But it will not increase the likelihood of me visiting WDW. It just doesn't sound interesting. If they want a conservation-heavy message - why not tie-in Wall-E. Granted, a whole land about that would be dull, too. Why does a land have to be so specific? Can't an expansion be another part of the world? Is it just because getting financial support from elsewhere is more appealing? (I do get that, mind you!)

 

[katiee37]

Personally I don't think Avatar is going to hold the appeal it currently has several years down the line. One rumor I read said Avatarland may not open until 2018. I never saw the movie so I don't know if there's going to be a sequel coming out between now and then, but I feel like a movie popular during 2012/2013 might not be big enough in 2018 to have an entire land, no matter how small or large it may be, dedicated to it.

 

[twebber55]

Personally I don't think Avatar is going to hold the appeal it currently has several years down the line. One rumor I read said Avatarland may not open until 2018. I never saw the movie so I don't know if there's going to be a sequel coming out between now and then, but I feel like a movie popular during 2012/2013 might not be big enough in 2018 to have an entire land, no matter how small or large it may be, dedicated to it.

George K was just quoted in the orlando biz journal that its coming in 2017

 

[think-like-tink]

I may be way off, I am wondering if Avatar Land is a code name for something else coming in?