From waste to wonder: Puducherry students make 'Avatar' figurines inspired from Hollywood flick

Puducherry [India], December 20: 'Avatar: The Way of Water' is not just successful at the box-office bus is also motivating children to get creative.

Swati Bhat

A group of students from puducherry's Seliamedu Government Higher Secondary School channelised their love for the James Cameron blockbuster by creating figurines of the lead characters Neytiri, Jake Sully and the Great Leonopteryx.

Santosh and Navaneethakrishnan, the two students, created the figurines as a way of welcoming the Zoe Saldana-starrer film in India. It took them a week to create the immaculate figures imitating the original characters of the sci-fi film. They were created entirely from natural waste material which is easily available in rural areas, like coconut shells, Mandara leaves and palm leaves.

Prior to this, the students had already made a sculpture of Tamilisai, which received great appreciation from the people around them.

'Avatar: The Way of Water' stars Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, and Kate Winslet.

As per Deadline, behind the scenes, reports have claimed that the production budget alone for the film has reached USD 250 million. The script for the sci-fi blockbuster has been penned by Cameron and Josh Friedman 20th Century Studios released the movie in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam on December 16, 2022.

Most theatres in Tamil Nadu are screening the film as early as 4 am. According to trade analyst Taran Adarsh, 'Avatar: The Way of Water' has opened to record numbers of over Rs 41 crore across India. These are the second-highest numbers among all Hollywood films released in India on their first day.

The film's Rs 41-crore opening puts it over films like 'Avengers: Infinity War', 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' and 'Spider-Man: No Way Home'. It only trails the 2019 blockbuster 'Avengers: Endgame'.

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‘Avatar 2’ Needs to Become a Box Office Juggernaut.

Director James Cameron has been clear about the stakes for his long-delayed sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water.” The science-fiction epic is so expensive, he says, it represents “the worst business case in movie history,” meaning it needs to become one of the three or four top-grossing movies of all time just to break even.

Swati Bhat

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection

By that metric, “The Way of Water” needs to clear $2 billion to justify its price tag and please Disney, which holds the rights to “Avatar” after acquiring 20th Century Fox in 2019. The studio spent a jaw-dropping $350 million to produce and even more to market the grand return to Pandora, making it one of the costliest tentpoles ever.

Only five movies in history — 2009’s “Avatar” ($2.9 billion globally), “Avengers: Endgame” ($2.7 billion), “Titanic” ($2.1 billion), “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($2.07 billion) and “Avengers: Infinity War” ($2.05 billion) — have surpassed the $2 billion mark, and those were in the best of conditions. In pandemic times, it’ll be that much harder. Even as a sequel to the highest-grossing movie of all time, does “The Way of Water” have what it takes to become the sixth?

“Avatar: The Way of Water” debuted to $134 million in North America and $435 million globally over the weekend, a solid start despite falling short of expectations. It stands as the third-biggest global opening weekend since the pandemic, following “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” ($442 million globally) and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” ($600 million globally). Yet only one of those films, the Spidey adventure, managed to reach the billion-dollar mark with $1.9 billion worldwide. Even with its towering debut and impressive legs at the box office, “No Way Home” couldn’t conquer the elusive $2 billion club. And just two others in COVID times, “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Jurassic World Dominion,” had enough staying power to hit $1 billion.

“James Cameron is setting the bar so high for himself,” says Paul Dergarabedian, a senior Comscore analyst, who believes Hollywood has gotten overly accustomed to Marvel-sized opening weekends. Unlike those superhero adventures, which often start strong (usually to the tune of $180 million to $200 million) and fall sharply in its second weekend, “Avatar” doesn’t have the kind of spoiler warnings that demand it’s seen as soon as possible. Yes, industry experts were expecting “The Way of Water” to make more to start. But Dergarabedian says that focusing on the film’s domestic debut “misses the point of Cameron’s entire career. It’s never been about opening weekend for him.”

To his point, Cameron’s biggest films, “Avatar” and “Titanic,” started slower at the box office and built huge audiences over time. The first “Avatar” opened with a decent but hardly dazzling $77 million domestically more than a decade ago. But thanks to pricey 3D tickets and repeat viewings, the film managed to draw crowds for months, eventually climbing to $760 million in North America and more than $2 billion internationally. “Titanic,” too, didn’t notch records with its $28 million debut in 1997. But the romantic disaster story had unparalleled staying power, becoming the first movie to ever cross $1 billion. Cameron tends to play the long game at the box office.

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'Avatar 2' gets official title, debuts first footage at CinemaCon2022, details inside

Washington [US], April 29: 'Avatar' fans rejoice! After years of delays, the official title of filmmaker James Cameron's 'Avatar' sequel has been revealed.

Pritish Bagdi

Official Poster

The upcoming installment's first footage also debuted during Disney's CinemaCon showcase in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

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The first 'Avatar' sequel is titled 'Avatar: The Way of Water' and the first teaser trailer will drop alongside 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' in theaters when the Marvel movie debuts on May 6.

Footage from the upcoming science-fiction film was also screened at the event, and reportedly, viewers were provided with 3D glasses to take the experience a notch higher.

According to Deadline, the first footage showed different regions of Pandora, an Earth-like habitable extrasolar moon of the gas giant Polyphemus from the Alpha Centauri system, which was also the setting of the original film. The footage also had shots of the Na'vi interacting with aquatic mammals like whales.

Here is Disney's synopsis of the film: Set more than a decade after the events

of the first film, 'Avatar: The Way of Water' begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure.

Directed again by Cameron, the second 'Avatar' is set over a decade after the first movie. The cast includes Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi and Kate Winslet. The first 'Avatar' film, which came out in 2009, remains one of the top-grossing

movies of all time.

But if you are a little fuzzy on the details of the Oscar-winning film, then there's a piece of good news! Disney will be re-releasing 'Avatar' in theaters on September 23 ahead of the sequel 'Avatar: The Way of Water', which will release on December 16. 'Avatar 3' will be releasing on December 20, 2024, 'Avatar 4' on December 18, 2026, and 'Avatar 5' on December 22, 2028.

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