Hollywood’s biggest film franchises get that big for a reason. Whether it’s Marvel, Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings, these are series that fans fall in love with and can’t stop talking about. So, why is “Avatar,” one of the biggest franchises in movie history, nearly invisible?
James Cameron’s science fiction action series, now on its third film, “Ash and Fire,” is a box office behemoth without a cultural footprint. No one talks about it. Fans of Marvel and even “The Fast and the Furious” series are quick to quote characters and puzzle out decade-spanning plotlines. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who cites “Avatar” protagonist Jake Sully as their favorite character, let alone someone who can remember his name.
How has “Avatar” become Hollywood’s sleeping giant, a franchise that arrives, collects billions of dollars and then disappears without a cultural trace?
The very things that make the franchise a commercial hit might be its Achilles’ heel.
“We’re looking at two visually compelling, very digestible stories that can only really be appreciated in a large screen format,” said Steve Granelli, a teaching professor of communication studies at Northeastern University. “The lack of cultural significance is because we have no need to talk about ‘Avatar’ outside of that experience unless we’re asking the question of, why are they doing another one?”
“Avatar” came out in 2009 and introduced audiences to the planet of Pandora, its tall, blue-skinned inhabitants, the Na’vi, and the colonizing human forces attempting to mine their world. It remains the highest-grossing film of all time, with a worldwide gross of $2.92 billion. “Avatar: The Way of Water,” the sequel that came out 13 years later, had seemingly no hype around it but grossed $2.34 billion worldwide, making it the third-biggest film of all time.
From the beginning, “Avatar” had a certain novelty to it. With “Terminator,” “Aliens” and “Titanic,” Cameron proved he was a cinematic and commercial juggernaut willing to push technological boundaries. In “Avatar,” Cameron used 3D and visual effects in new ways, creating a world and characters that blurred the line between human artists and technological tools.
“I don’t think anyone was clamoring for another story [after the first movie] because it felt like such a singular event that we all collectively experienced,” said Steve Granelli, teaching professor of communication studies at Northeastern University. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
Cameron’s sense of visual spectacle and technological invention are undeniable draws, Granelli said. With home theater setups getting more advanced, and ticket prices increasing, it’s been hard for theaters to draw audiences. That’s become even more difficult after the COVID-19 pandemic shifted viewing habits further toward streaming and home viewing.
The way for movie theaters to survive is to make an event out of the theater-going experience.
More and more films, including recent hits like “Oppenheimer” and “Sinners,” are leveraging premium formats like IMAX to draw crowds. “Avatar” fully leverages technology, which has dovetailed with theaters investing in higher-quality picture and sound quality to create “big productions that people really feel the need to see in theaters,” said Jordan Hohman, vice president of project development at Phoenix Theatres Entertainment.
Phoenix Theatres has already upgraded its projectors to prepare for “Fire and Ash” and Cameron’s use of different frame rates, the frequency with which consecutive images, or frames, are displayed. Even if audiences aren’t talking about “Avatar,” those in the theater business see it as a boon.
“There’s been a growing segment of event films for movie theaters, so in terms of box office dollars, that’s where it translates to us,” Hohman said.
However, the visual and technological spectacle of “Avatar” is only half the story. The other is a simple story: a sci-fi riff on “Dances With Wolves” with archetypal characters that lingers in the background but leaves little mark.
“I don’t think anyone was clamoring for another story [after the first movie] because it felt like such a singular event that we all collectively experienced,” Granelli said. “It was kind of like a monoculture moment, even though people weren’t talking about it beyond that.”
“Avatar” lacks interconnected storylines and characters that define modern franchise storytelling. There is almost zero barrier to entry. That simplicity might help the franchise connect with audiences all over the world, but it also makes the series less sticky.
In media studies, uses and gratifications theory helps explain what people get out of a particular piece of media and why they seek it out, Granelli explained. People generally drift toward media for four main reasons: information, entertainment, conversation and identity.
What baffles Granelli about “Avatar” is it’s “missing three of those.” It is pure entertainment.
In that way, and so many others, “Avatar” is an anomaly, a groundbreaking success without any trace of broken ground.
“There’s a lot of reasons why it does the numbers that it does, but all of them still make me wonder how there aren’t other movies that have done the same thing,” Granelli said. “There’s motivators that I’m missing, but I know one of them isn’t conversation. It’s not people saying, ‘You’ve got to go see it.’”
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