Cameron the multiplier!

I just read a small part of an interview that James Cameron gave recently, which made me recollect that there is something massive being constructed inside this guy's head about to hit us soon. Avatar 2 and Avatar 3, that is what he's been working on for quite some time. Well, I wasn't a big fan of Avatar and am still trying to figure out what was so remarkable about it to justify the mind-boggling money it earned in probably every continent on this world (even the penguins in the Arctic would have paid to see this one!). But even then I am most likely to end up watching the early shows for the sequels, considering the extent of hype and pressure that one is going to feel when these movies surface. Not to worry, as they are still in early stages and this is what Cameron had to say in the interview I read.

I'm working on Avatar 2 and Avatar 3. I was talking the other day with Peter Jackson and said, 'You had it easy dude. You had the books when you did the second and third Lord of the Rings.' I have to create my own books in my head and extract a script from it. I'm deep into it and I'm living in Pandora right now.

The full interview here -- http://play.lifegoesstrong.com/article/james-cameron-interview-3d-films-cirque-du-soleil-movie-avatar-sequels-and-what-he-knows-now

There are no official release dates yet but December '14 was the date initially planned for Avatar 2. Might get pushed a bit possibly. Come whenever it does, this one is gonna be huge. I'm not talking of the script or the latest technologies in 3D that would emerge with it, nor the further discovery of Pandora through Cameron's eyes. I am simply talking of the thing that many say matters eventually. Money! Remember, Cameron has never failed to deliver. He's some kind of a genius when it comes to ensuring that his movies make money. Yeah, his works are impressive. But I still cannot fathom if one was to say that Avatar and Titanic are the two greatest movies of all time, even though only these two movies have ever crossed $2 billion in worldwide earnings, and I mean ever! James Cameron somehow gets everything right, from the initial buzz, to the movie itself and then to the marketing and publicity, along with gathering a few awards for his movies here and there. 

The best way to look at it is from the viewpoint of the 'Mulitplier' -- that is asking this simple question, how many times of the production costs are the movie earnings (worldwide)? Of course, we are ignoring the marketing costs but this still gives a good idea on how well the movie has done. Check out this graph for James Cameron's full-length feature films.

It is simply staggering, a kind of ratio that hardly anyone in the industry could match and that too on such a consistent basis. It has never dipped below 1x, and of his seven movies, this multiplier has been five times above 5x! The producers do make a lot of dough when Cameron takes on the Director's chair. And with the bars raised so high for the sequels of Avatar, Cameron would really have to go deep into Pandora to continue delivering such staggering box-office performances.