How have audiences reacted and responded to the film?

Before the film was even released, audiences had already created a great response to the film with the teaser being watched over 4million times on the apple website [see avatar apple link]. Obviously this shows that the intended audience reacted well to the film's narrative image, which generally follows trend through to the film itself.

The fans' responses to the actual film has been even more positive;

Both of these quotes have been sourced directly from the avatar fan page on facebook. The fan page has reached over 750 thousand members in the last week which just shows how much people enjoy this film and the whole franchise which has been created around it.

This support for the film has been reflected in the box office;

Avatar No. 2 Globally [see wall street journal link]

Avatar back at UK top spot [see female first link]

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Where and how is the film being exhibited in the UK?

Avatar is being shown in a wide selection of cinema's across the UK. It is in-fact being shown in over 70% of the UK's theatrical cinemas. That's 471 out of the 650 we see available. However, here in London avatar's most important screening is arguably the I-Max Cinema in waterloo. The I-Max has always been at the forefront of 3-D screenings with many short documentaries being shown there on a regular basis. However, nothing on this scale has ever reached the I-Max cinema.

The I-Max cinema is the viewing place of choice for 3-D viewers. It's extra large screen is able to display images of a much finer resolution compared to any normal cinema around the UK. Cameron saw the I-Max as an opportunity to display his film's 3-D characteristics in it's best possible light.

Even though Cameron intended avatar to be a 3-D production, some younger viewers find the 3-D experience too up-front and imposing, therefore Cameron had to produce a 2-D version as well. The 2-D version has still been rated as a 5 star movie by many film critics but the has been said to create less of an ability to escape away into the film. Furthermore, 2-D prices are obviously lower than that of the 3-D prices involved. This is why Cameron may have urged all viewers to the 3-D screenings, to bump up the film's box office takings.

Here is the price lists for a 3-D ticket compared to a 2-D ticket in the Vue cinema in Greenwich.

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How has the UK theatrical distribution of the film been managed in order to ensure the film's success in th UK?

The theatrical distribution of avatar was run by 20th Century Fox, who are also responsible for the production of the film. Due to their major influence in the media insdustry it was of no surprise that avatar was a big hit in both the US and here in the UK. Looking through 20th Century Fox's portfolio it is clear to see they are experts in action adventure family blockbusters and Avatar is no different to these previous cases.



The UK Film premier was in Leicester Square on the 11th December. This premiered release created huge media attention and public hype around the film, which completely over-shadowed all other news for the remainder of the week. This huge attention snowballed the film into it's first 3 weeks of public release. The initial reviews said the film was below par, and had no real story line. However, after the premier the reviews were back to full strength and the public release gathered real pace. To further ensure the success of the film, 20th Century Fox capitalized on the media attention situated around the film by a saturated release. The film was released into 500 of the 650 cinemas nationwide, allowing all enthuastic cinema goers the opportunity to see the film. This meant that the film's first weekend takings were extremely high at £8.5 million, compared to the £1.5 million taken by St. Trinians in the same opening weekend.


The weekend avatar was released we saw many other films being released on that very weekend. However, Fox knew that these other films would not be major competition to avatar's big budget production. The films accompanying avatar on its release date were Humpday, Nine and St. Trinians 2. The reason for none of these films creating the downfall of avatar is that they all are aiming at different target markets. Due to the sheer size of avatar's production, Cameron managed to have such a wide target audience that no one of these other three films could disrupt avatar's box office takings enough to create a significant affect.

James Cameron may have also combated the major threat posed by pirate copies of his film. The whole thrill of avatar is that the film was shot in full 3-D from start to finish, which is, I am told, near impossible to create a pirate version of. This means that people are less likely to buy a pirate copy of the film and will wait for the film to come out on full blu-ray whether it's 2 or 3-D. However, the 2-D version of the film is just another film, which means people will and most likely have been able to pirate the film onto a low quality 2-D version, but personally I cannot see many people reverting to buy these copies as the film is much better in 3-D picture. This will lead to the film creating more revenue as it's released onto DVD or BLU-RAY as people will wait to get the full HQ versions.

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