How the Avatar Movies Are Like Gravity

Why is Avatar the highest grossing movie of all time and why did its sequel do similarly well?

The facts of gravity are well known. We know exactly how mass translates to gravitational force, allowing precise predictions of the movement of heavenly bodies. And anyone can easily calculate the gravity on Earth with a ball and a stopwatch. These are things we’ve now understood for centuries.

So, the facts of gravity: Known and undisputed.

What we don’t have, though, is a good theory of gravity. Or, to say more precisely, we have no idea why gravity happens — what makes things with mass attract each other. Obviously, from the facts, we have to accept that gravity occurs, but we just don’t have the slightest idea what is the process that leads to these observed facts.

Which brings us to the Avatar movies. It is a well-known fact that Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all time, and its sequel is the third-highest-grossing movie of all time. Pound for pound, it is the most successful movie series ever. However, as to why Avatar is the most successful movie ever, only God and James Cameron know why.

James Cameron holds three spots in the top ten movies of all time. Avatar (1), Avatar: The Way of Water (3), and Titanic (4) — another movie that completely baffled me in its success (I remember it opening against a James Bond movie and thinking no one would pick that over Bond). Now, if I look at any of the other movies on the top ten list, they make sense to me. Avengers: Endgame is number two, and its gross was the result of two decades and 20 movies of goodwill. Number five is Star Wars: The Force Awakens, part of the most famous film series of all time and a Star Wars movie with the old stars that was actually fun after the disappointment of the prequels. Six is Avengers: Infinity War, the lead into Endgame. Seven is Spider-Man: No Way Home, which cashed in on two decades of Spider-Man movies. Number eight is Jurassic World, a follow-up to one of the greatest blockbuster movies. Number nine is The Lion King remake — wait, what? Still, The Lion King is a very well-regarded movie, so that still makes some sense to me people would fall for that remake slop. And ten is now Inside Out 2, the sequel to a beloved Pixar movie (and what felt like relief in Pixar finally making a movie that wasn’t a stinker).

But Avatar is number one. Why?

Now, I admit I’m doing movie analysis of a movie I don’t know very well. I saw it once with Rifftrax on. I never saw the sequel. But this seems like the appropriate amount of knowledge to evaluate it since the average public probably knew less than me, and they, using that knowledge, decided to go see it in droves.

Nothing about Avatar makes it seem like it should be the biggest blockbuster of all time. It’s niche scifi of a made-up property with no built-in audience. It’s two and a half hours long with a plot that seems like it only has a half hour of material. It has no big names in it (Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana — in motion capture — and I can’t recall the name of the male lead). There is no clever writing — I’ve never once heard anyone quote it (except to make fun of unobtanium). It’s mainly CGI; it’s like watching a cartoon.

Despite all of this it broke records. People flocked to it. Saw it repeatedly, maybe? It’s hard to imagine, but for that kind of money, people had to.

And it would be easy to dismiss this as a fluke. “Oh, it was just the novelty of the visuals along with 3D.” And that made sense. Just a fluke. I mean, despite the movie making so much money, it had pretty much zero cultural impact compared to something like John Wick which grosses a tiny fraction of what it made. No one talked about it — no one could even name a character from it. And thirteen years later, when James Cameron finally made another movie, I expected it to flop because who cares? We’ve seen tons of better movies by then, and the novelty of the CGI would be worth nothing at this point. I mean, I had zero desire to see it.

But it quickly became another one of the highest grossing movies of all time!

So again, the facts are clear: The Avatar series is the most successful series of all time (per capita). The further sequels are most likely similarly going to dominate the charts. These are facts. You can’t dispute them.

But what’s the theory that explains this?

I mean, you’d think the studios would be trying to dissect all the secrets and apply them to other movies.

“We don’t need to pay $80 million for Robert Downey Jr.; Avatar made billions and it doesn’t have a single name in it anyone cares about.”

“We don’t have to license a well-known property; Avatar was just a bunch of scifi stuff thrown together — none of which seems particularly original — and it’s the highest-grossing movie of all time.”

“No more script doctoring! No one cares! Just leave in placeholder words like Avatar did with ‘unobtanium’ and made all the money!”

But no, it doesn’t seem like any studio has tried to copy its success. Everyone else is as baffled by it as I am. The studios continue to pursue blockbusters in the usual way — action extravaganzas with big stars in them — and leave whatever Avatar was to James Cameron.

But let’s cut to the chase: Why exactly is it that Avatar did so well?

I DON’T KNOW!

It’s bugged me for a long time, and I know I shouldn’t care — it’s not like I’m a studio exec — but I live in this universe, and the highest-grossing movie of my reality is Avatar, and I just want to have some understanding of why, because it still makes zero sense to me. I mean, I can understand it doing well, but the most well of any movie? Nothing points to that. I was hoping that by talking through this with you guys, I would stumble on something — on some theory — but I got nothing. Maybe I should have tried to solve the gravity one instead of Avatar. I really think I could crack that one if I thought about it deeply, while all my deep thoughts on Avatar point to the fact it should be a movie that did okay in theaters and was completely forgotten.

Anyway, thanks for letting me share my frustration on this unsolved mystery.

So, do you have any theories on Avatar or gravity?