It’s the highest grossing film of all time $2.7B and also the top selling BRD (Blu-ray disc) ever released—so what do you do for an encore? Well if you’re James Cameron and Warner Brothers Pictures, re-release the film, this time in 3D only. That’s right, just eight months after the initial Dec 18th premier in theaters showing the film in both 2 and 3D formats Avatar’s producer Jon Landau said a 3D only Avatar with almost nine minutes of new footage will be shown to audiences starting August 27th.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

Just how long does the studio expect the film to run this time? The safe money is on September 10 as a first milepost date, with the new 3D film Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D opening that day, and if Avatar proves to have particularly strong "legs" (or Resident is a dud) look for the next major 3D film release date of Sept-24, when Legend of the Guardians has its film debut. So, most folks are gearing up to see the new film within the first two weeks of the re-release date. This of course also helps build up demand, (all those nice images of blockbuster fans lining up and camping out…) "to be the first to see it again" (yes it is that trivial) and this can do wonders for any new product.

But wait, there are new ("never before seen") scenes left on the cutting-room floor that as rumor has it "shocked" the original crew when they were cut from the film, and are "a must-see" that will drive folks to the new re-release. There’s talk of "powerful emotional scenes" related to the death of major characters, and a new "Sturmbeest" creature that was originally cut plus a scene that "adds context" and "stepping stone of escalation" to the coming conflict.

All this sounds very convincing, until one realizes that the eight or so minutes restored to the original film bring the total run-time up to 170 minutes, which also happens to be the very upper limit of the time allotted for an IMAX platter… Had IMAX been able to accommodate just five more (or say even 30 more) minutes, would that "must-see" film footage have gone up or down to match the major 3D distributer’s upper limit—Nah!

As the story line goes, the film never had a complete run due to subsequent 3D films that came after the original Avatar release—edging the film out of theaters before a complete run to make room for Alice in Wonderland, et al. (released two months later.) But, none came even close to the windfall that audiences gave to Pandora land…or have they?

Turns out that yes in gross sales, Avatar sits at the top, until you begin to adjust for total ticket sales (audience) and for inflation according to the folks at the-movie-times.com.

A 2008 blog (scene-stealers.com) about the subject was written by Eric Melin at the time when Dark Knight surpassed the $471M gross BO mark, making it the number one film of its day. Here’s how Melin puts it… "Not to take anything away from "The Dark Knight," but the true test of a movie’s massive and popular cultural significance can be better tracked through an all-time grossing list that has been adjusted for inflation. The number of tickets sold for a movie is a bigger indicator of true interest and obsession than how much money was made total… As of today, "The Dark Knight" registers on this list at number 39, below "Home Alone" and "Love Story."

And how does Avatar do on the adjusted gross list? Not even in the top ten… It ranks number 14 with an adjusted domestic Box Office take of about $750M, behind all time greats Gone with the Wind, ($1.56B), Star Wars ($1.35B), Sound of Music ($1.08B), ET ($107B), The Ten Commandments ($995M) and even Cameron’s own Titanic ($981M.)

So if you get just a little twang up your spine at the notion that just eight months after its initial release, Avatar is going for more BO gold under somewhat contrived circumstances, you may just be feeling the spirit of Victor Fleming whose number one rated film (on so many levels beyond gross BO) waited a full eight years before re-releasing GWTW. One also has to wonder just how much better that seminal film may have done at the BO if it were made with the 3D technology of today. Still it’s nice to know some things remain true, when put in proper perspective.