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Audiences will decide this weekend whether the 3-D science-fiction adventure was worth the delay and the estimated $380 million that News Corp.'s Fox and partners Dune Entertainment and Ingenious Film Partners spent to make and market the movie.
As of Friday, "Avatar" accounted for 87 percent of weekly ticket sales at online vendor Fandango.com. It could generate $75 million in U.S. ticket sales this weekend, according to Gitesh Pandya, editor of New York-based Box Office Guru.
"Avatar" was shot using a dual-camera 3-D system that Cameron, 55, invented with partner Vince Pace after the director's 1997 success with "Titanic," the all-time top-grossing film. Executives at Fox, the studio that backed "Titanic," were willing to start work on "Avatar" almost right away.
"I thought it was the best project he had," Bill Mechanic, the chairman of Fox films at the time, said in an interview. "He had the vision for it."
Cameron didn't think the technology was ready. He teamed with Pace, who specializes in making film equipment for tough locations, and spent 10 years developing a camera system that mimics the human eye to add realism to 3-D imagery. "Avatar" is Cameron's first feature film since "Titanic."
With a production budget of $230 million, "Avatar" ranks among the most expensive films, according to the Internet Movie Database. Walt Disney Co.'s 2007 release "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" cost $300 million and Sony Corp.'s "Spider-Man 3" totaled $258 million, the IMDB Web site says.
Box-office forecast
"We know what our break-even threshold is," Cameron said in an interview, without giving box-office targets. "Everybody at Fox is starting to relax a bit because people really are responding positively and the tracking is way up."
Cameron said, "I don't think this film is going to behave like 'Titanic,' where it just defies gravity, but because of the 3-D, we know historically 3-D films tend to hold in and have legs."
"Titanic," also released in December, was in theaters until the following September and was No. 1 for 17 weeks, according to Box Office Mojo, an online movie tracking site based in Burbank, Calif.
"Avatar" may take in $320 million to $400 million in the United States and Canada, according to Tony Wible, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia. It also may keep Hollywood and theaters focused on 3-D technology.
In the film, which opens Friday in 3,457 theaters, Cameron tells a tale of corporate greed when the seemingly primitive inhabitants of a distant moon are besieged by a private army seeking rare minerals. Sam Worthington plays an ex-Marine whose loyalty is tested after he inhabits a cloned alien body and begins to live among them.
The film needs U.S. and Canadian ticket sales of $217 million to break even, said Wible, who uses domestic box-office sales to estimate foreign, DVD and TV revenue and merchandise sales.
A $400 million domestic take would put "Avatar" on par with "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," the top U.S. and Canadian film this year with $402 million in sales for Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures. That picture, released in June, collected $835 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
Cameron's "Titanic" generated record worldwide sales of $1.84 billion, including $600.8 million from the United States and Canada, according to Box Office Mojo. The movie cost $200 million to make, the most ever when it was released.
"People thought we were stupid for making the movie," said Mechanic, who now runs Pandemonium films.
Cameron, creator of the "Terminator" films, was already thinking about "Avatar" when he started production of "Titanic."
Innovative camera
The director put up cash to develop the camera technology. Pace said he added in-kind services through his Burbank, Calif.-based company and licensed the system for movies including Time Warner Inc.'s "Journey to the Center of the Earth."
"He's not afraid to put his money where his mouth is when he believes in what he is doing," Pace said in an interview.
Studios plan 22 3-D movies over the next two years, including "Alice in Wonderland" and "Piranha 3-D," according to Los Angeles-based Exhibitor Relations Co.
"Avatar" will run in 2,032 domestic theaters with 3,124 3-D screens, according to Fox. It will also play at 1,425 conventional cinemas, said Gregg Brilliant, a Fox spokesman.
Studio executives declined to discuss the film's cost or profit potential, Brilliant said.
A worldwide box office total of $500 million would make the movie profitable, David Bank, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets in New York, wrote in an e-mail. He recommends investors buy shares of News Corp.
News Corp. rose 31 cents to $13.35 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Knoxville, Tenn.-based Regal, the largest U.S. cinema chain, fell 7 cents to $13.90 on the New York Stock Exchange, while Plano, Tex.-based Cinemark, No. 2, advanced 13 cents to $13.54.
If the movie succeeds, there will likely be a sequel, Cameron said.
"But it might not necessarily be my next film. I'll probably do something else in between and almost certainly not as big as 'Avatar,' " Cameron said.
-- Bloomberg News
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