While the long queues at ticket counters turning a rarity, a rightful metre to gauge a film’s popularity has become the number of times it is downloaded over the Internet. And the perfect example, of this phenomena, is James Cameron’s celestial saga, Avatar. It topped the list for the number of illegal downloads for the year 2010 — the
number having risen 33 per cent since last year, but Cameron’s film didn’t seem to have suffered. It was also the top grosser globally raking more than $2 billion and its home video release broke records.
Piracy has been a bane for long, but has Avatar found a way for pirate-proofing film business? “No,” says auteur Nitesh Rohit, and elucidates his point, saying, “Cameron certainly found a way to market his film really well. For instance, the release was hyped as the ‘Avatar Day’ — an event you couldn’t miss, it had massive rushes and launches at film festivals. And despite the fact that it had the same old clichéd ‘good versus evil’ storyline they found a way to utilise the 3D medium really well. Even impulsive downloaders only added to the number and hype. And as a result of the massive PR and marketing exercise that was spread over 12 years of the making of it most people had the urge to see Avatar in theatres.”
As Nitesh suggests even 3D played a major role in Avatar’s dominance at the BO, Sukalp Sharma, media executive, adds, “After rave initial reviews a lot of us wanted to check out the special-effects in the third-dimension (which we couldn’t have done at home on DVDs). And it was totally worth it.”
The global appeal and the fact that it catered to a family audience also helped its cause, say experts.
“It was one of the few blockbusters that thrived on promotions and only grew stronger with word-of-mouth publicity. And being a film that interested the family audience, it brought in people in droves; something which only legendary hits like Jurassic Park and Titanic have enjoyed in the past,” he adds.