Not long after I wrote yesterday’s post about Avatar being the best movie franchise ever, I received news about the one piece that was missing to complete the Expectations society logic:
Director James Cameron promises there will be a sequel.
For anyone who hasn’t already bought into the hype and watched the trailer, pre-booked the movie tickets, there’s a new reason to get on the train – see Avatar now, to get the entry ticket to enjoy the even better movie then the next one, the one after that!
My only surprise is that they advertise only one sequel, instead of employing good ol’, wholesome, trilogy marketing! But my guess is, it won’t take long before Avatar III is pre-announced as well. Definitely not longer than ’til the first sign of movie ticket sales for Avatar (I) starting to slump…
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The side of me interested in marketing is very excited about this. However, the side of me interested in storytelling (not corporate storytelling, the artistic form of storytelling) isn’t very excited. The Avatar movie seem to promise quite a lot, but I’m in doubt if it can deliver.
The both cool and scary part is that in nextopia it seems like it doesn’t necessarily matter. What is your view on that? I mean, we’ve seen examples of what I call universes (that I wrote about as a guest blogger in this blog earlier this year, and I argue Avatar is a great example with several movies and a videogame on the top of the iceberg) that has dropped in popularity. I’m thinking about for example the Matrix trilogy that got a cult status already from the first movie but wasn’t able to deliver later on with the other movies for a lot of people.
On the other hand, perhaps that doesn’t matter too much in the nextopian society? One of the great benefits of building a universe is after all that you can offer to the fanatic fans to dig deeper and deeper, always offering new stories within the universe. It’s like saying “it’s out there for you to find”, which in many ways is similar to announcing something like a sequel. There is more to be found at all times.
Bigge,
Bullseye. I think your reasoning about universe franchises is fascinating and on the spot. And as you suspect, I think that the longevity of things matters only in anticipation, not in hindsight. That is, expecting means the world for people’s behaviors and the resulting business, consuming is less critical…
emvehå,
MD