FX Buys Rights To Avatar For $25 Million | Techland

After raking in a billion dollars and selling out a few thousand 3D screenings, the film force that is Avatar has seeped into TV execs’ fantasies.

Variety is reporting that FX just bought the basic cable rights to James Cameron’s blockbusting flick Avatar for a tidy $25 million sum.

But, take away the large screens, the surround sound, and most importantly, the 3D and what will Avatar become? Perhaps not worthy of a $25 million price tag.

Click here for all of Techland’s Avatar coverage: Blue boob commentary, James Cameron interview & Oscar rumors

Now, let me be clear. I loved this movie. I’ll probably go see it again before it’s out of theaters. But – and this is a pretty big but – I’m not so sure I’d sacrifice my memory of an amazing theater experience to re-watch a movie that might not be so special on a small 2D screen.

I’ll admit it – I was dazzled by the fancy special effects, probably overly so. And even though FX won’t begin airing the film until midway through 2012, I’m not so sure that even then I’ll be ready to admit that my Avatar love was really just spectacle lust.

Will you watch?

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crispy

I’ve been wondering about this myself. I’m sure I’ll buy the DVD, but surely it won’t be as good as the theatrical experience.
grape_crush

…take away the large screens, the surround sound, and most importantly, the 3D…
.
Well, we have large screens and surround sound already, yes? And aren’t 3-D teevees and channels already on the horizon?
Allie Townsend

If I thought that would be the scene in my living room two years from now, I’d be thrilled to watch Avatar on basic cable … granted that means FX would need to broadcast in 3D by that time, too.
http://www.124monkeys.com Sean DeCoursey forgot his password

Avatar is the first talkie of 3D. It’s not actually a good movie on its own. I saw it, the visuals were amazing and awesome. Now I want to see an actually good movie that uses that technology. It’s not a movie that will age well, and I don’t think it’ll do great on cable.
omahalawyer

After ten minutes of whether if I was going to vomit, my eyes settled in and forgot about/stopped noticing the 3-D. I thought it was nifty, but not 50% or more premium on my ticket-price nifty. It did not advance plot or character one iota. I could take it or leave it; Avatar, like any special-effects blowout, will not be the same off of the silver screen, but not just because it will be relegated primarily to standard 2-D — it will just be subject to the normal constraints of smaller image.
darlkom

I live in Uganda and we don’t have 3D cinemas here but Avatar was still sold out for all the shows the weekend it opened and having nothing to compare it to (as far as the 3D is concerned) it was pretty good movie. Pandora still manages to amaze in 2D.
http://www.nela.in/ moserw

That is beside the point IMHO. Avatar is about the big SFX and the new direction movie making is headed to. Otherwise James Cameron might have made any other movie instead of waiting more than a decade to make Avatar. Its more like the SFX needed Avatar’s story and characters and not vice versa.
http://redeleon.wordpress.com R.E. de Leon

I’m a Filipino, living in the Philippines, just so you know where I’m coming from, perspective-wise.

My overall thought on Avatar-without-the-effects is that the story would have been a really good story to tell about two decades, or even just ten years ago. And it would have also been an interesting story to tell in the first few years after 9/11, just as people’s minds were force-attuned to the topic of respect for cultures other than one’s own.

Today, however, I think that’s a lesson movie audiences have already learned. And I think we are, as a global society, at a point where it’s a matter of finding out how to apply those lessons in the real world. (Because, as we all know, Politicians and bureaucrats are always at least a couple of steps behind the rest of us.)

I’m one of those people who think every moviegoing experience should be an enriching experience. So I would have preferred a deeper examination of the themes Cameron put into Avatar.

As is, we as the audience don’t learn anything from the movie that we haven’t seen elsewhere. (Dances With Wolves, for example, and a couple of dozen similar films.)

I think District 9, which basically had the same themes, brought out some intriguing insights. Or at least I think it did.

Just my two centavos worth.
windchild85

The biggest themes I saw in Avatar are these:

1) Environmentalism
2) Anti-Genocide (others have said racism, but in my view, the anti-genocide theme was much more evident)
3) Anti-war
4) Anti-capitalism

If the themes are why you enjoyed Avatar, then I think they would tranlate very well to less-than-3D screens. However, if you only enjoyed the movie because of its truly amazing 3D special fx, then seeing it in any other format might be a disappointment.