Ster-Kinekor has announced that the re-release of Avengers: Endgame will launch in a selection of its theatres on Friday, 12 July. The participating Ster-Kinekor cinemas are Gateway, Kolonnade, Capegate, Parow, Cresta, The Zone @ Rosebank, Irene, Mall of Africa, Sterland, and Eastgate.
Huh. Well clearly this was a lie.
The director isn’t worried, but allegedly Disney is. Important distinction.
Which makes very little sense to me. Avatar was released by 20th Century Fox, which is now a subsidiary of Disney anyway. So what is their issue?
Screen Rant themselves have very scathing words to say about it. Let me find the piece…
Here it is:
There’s only one reason to want to pass this arbitrary milestone: hubris. And that’s not a good look for Marvel.
Oddly, Disney may well be relieved that Avengers: Endgame doesn’t look set to beat Avatar. As a result of the Disney/Fox acquisition, the Avatar franchise also belongs to the House of Mouse. James Cameron is working on sequels, and Disney has a lot riding on their success. They’re planning to synergize the release of these sequels with the opening of a wave of “World of Pandora” theme parks. Avatar may have been a phenomenal hit at the time, but its cultural impact was surprisingly muted in the long-run. That means that, when Avatar 2 is due out, Disney will probably want to base their marketing on the continuation of the biggest box office success story of all time (sans ticket price inflation).
This is interesting. Makes sense that they would be hyping themselves up to promote. It’s like when Makro and Dion Wired ‘battle’ when they are owned by the same holding company.