Avatar 2 is coming to theatres and here’s what you can expect

Hello to my new readers!

Each week we cover the following-

• What took place in the media & entertainment space weekly

• A weekly box office chart

• And, an interesting story in detail

Let’s dive in-

 What occurred in media and entertainment this week?

1. Warner Bros. Discovery closes in on ‘Max’ as the name of its combined HBO Max-Discovery+ streaming service- HBO, Discovery, DC Comics and Warner Bros. will be among the landing hubs on the platform.

2. Who will be Disney’s next CEO?- Disney’s board and CEO Bob Iger are aiming to find his next successor over the next two years. Dana Walden & Alan Bergman are the potential candidates.

3. PVR plans a big South India push this year amid rapid mall development- “We are South-skewed in terms of screen expansion this year because a lot of malls have come up in the South” , said Ajay Bijli, chairman of PVR Limited.

4. Common Service Centre to open 500 cinema halls by March 2023- CSC(a special-purpose vehicle of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) and October Cinemas aim to open 1 lakh cinema halls in total and 500 halls by March 2023 in rural areas, each with a seating capacity of up to 200 people.

5. Dailyhunt is the only media & entertainment company among the Top 10 to receive maximum funding by private equity and venture capitalists investors as per Hurun India 500 report- Coming under the media and entertainment industry, Dailyhunt is owned by VerSe Innovation. It raised $805 million in funding this year. The content aggregation platform is available in 14 Indian languages and was founded in 2007.

6. World's Largest Entertainment Company Disney's CEO May Sell It To Apple, Claims Company Insider- Iger has rejected the rumours and called any talk of Apple buying the company is “pure speculation”. In his autobiography - The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company - Iger wrote that if Jobs would not have died in 2011, a Disney and Apple merger would have happened.

Worldwide Collection of Best Movies

And in the story of the week, we will now discuss the trending news of this year in media & entertainment-

Avatar 2 is coming to theatres and here’s what you can expect-

To raise our expectations high, the director, James Cameron is “set out to test the limits of what cinema can do.”

And we can’t wait to experience it.

Before we begin, let’s see how Avatar fared.

Avatar

Avatar premiered in December 2009, when ticket sales were significantly less expensive than they are today.

Still, the movie played on the big screen for nearly 10 months, driven by repeat viewings and premium screenings.

Cameron’s Avatar quickly became the top-grossing film of all time at the worldwide box office, with more than $2.8 billion.

It was also credited for ushering in the digital 3D era.

Cameron introduced new production tools and techniques in performance capture and virtual production.

Avatar won Oscars for Best Achievement in Cinematography, Visual Effects and Art Direction in 2010.

Some less-known facts about Avatar-

The film’s acumen & worldwide popularity can be judged by the following-

• There were 18 different versions of “Avatar” created for the domestic market, plus an additional 92 for international markets, which were released in 47 languages.

• The international versions included more than 52 subtitled and 18 dubbed versions on film, 58 subtitled and 36 dubbed versions in digital 3D, nine subtitled and eight dubbed versions in digital 2D, and 23 subtitled and 15 dubbed versions for Imax.

Talking about Avatar 2

Avatar 2: The Way of Water

Storyline:

The second "Avatar" film picks up with the avatar Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his Na'vi wife, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who are forced to take their children, leave their home, and explore the regions of Pandora when an ancient threat resurfaces and pushes Jake into a war against humans.

What’s so special about Cameron?

Director James Cameron

• Avatar was originally planned to release in 1999 but the technology was not available as per Cameron’s vision.

• To keep characters realistic, he used a skull cap with a camera to show every movement of the eye and mouth.

• Cameron developed a filming rig that consisted of stereoscopic cameras used to mimic the human eye. It allowed the cinematographer to capture two images at the same time.

Cameron did not have a formal education in film direction.

He indeed worked odd jobs as a truck driver and janitor before trying his hands at film direction.

Isn’t this fascinating?

Cameron writes in universal themes that are bigger than any one genre.

There's no more universal theme than family.

At the center of each of the sequels (3 more to come after Avatar 2) is the Sully family. What are the dynamics that parents go through to protect their family?

The Way of Water represents Cameron's most significant technological advancement.

Saldaña details Avatar 2's underwater scenes-

“Much of the Avatar franchise is created through motion capture, which, while very effective technology, does not work well underwater. Cameron has spent years working with the technology to figure out exactly how to pull off these scenes, and the actor confirms he's figured out a system that makes for compelling filmmaking.”

While we are yet to witness if Way of Water would be as good as its prequel

One thing is for sure.

We are going to have an experience that is exclusively meant for theatres long after the pandemic.

After all, the senior VFX supervisor and four-time Oscar winner, Joe Letteri, has worked to create excellent visuals, as can be seen from the trailer.

That's all for today!

And if you've got a moment, I’d love to hear what you thought of this edition of the newsletter.

I read each of your replies.

Vipul..