Fortune Favors The Bold

Avatar: Game Changers Don’t Come from the Top. They Come Out of Nowhere.

ericmortensen:

I have not seen Avatar. Few have.  Yet I keep reading these stories about it being a game changer that will revolutionize the industry.  I have not seen Avatar, but I am fairly certain that it will not change anything.

Avatar is a big, expensive dinosaur of a movie in an era where major studios have less pull and less reach than they ever did before.  It’s a huge financial gamble that depends on a world that no longer exists, where audiences are uninformed and choices are severely limited.  It depends on the one-time spectacle of new, never-before-seen technology and effects.

Avatar is the polar opposite of the forces that are actually changing all types of media. It costs way too much, takes way too long to produce, and is still ultimately dependent on a massive marketing budget that forces it upon the public.  It’s a business model that cannon sustain itself in the long term and frequently fails even in the short term.

Of course, Avatar may very well be a huge success. And it might be a fine film. But it won’t change much of anything. Powerful filmmakers securing massive budgets, using the latest technology and forcing their films on the public is par for the course.  Game changers don’t come from the top.  They come out of nowhere.

GAME CHANGERS YUK YUK YUK.

I disagree with this thesis because the underlying facts are erroneous and the argument a fallacy. James Cameron’s terribly expensive and obsessively-crafted movies are anything but traditional Hollywood products. Most directors would never get the freedom and the budget that he insists upon; and in the past, he’s made big bets to get that freedom/budget, bets that no sane person would take upon himself/herself. In the movie industry, James Cameron is very much a man from nowhere.

O WAIT IT CAN’T BE GOOD IF IT DIDN’T COME FROM FOUR BEARDED 23-YEAR-OLDS IN A BROOKLYN LOFT, WITH AN HD CAM AND A DREAM (AND A TWEE SOUNDTRACK). WES ANDERSON 4 LIFE!