You're telling me.  They thought it would flop because of the blue skinned people and massive budget.

Avatar 2: Rise of the Smurfs

The real question is.....

Would it have been such a success if there was only a 2D version??

Everyone I know who has seen it talks about how good it looks in 3D. Not about the story, characters or anything else.

Avatar was a success the moment we knew James Cameron was behind it.
There has never been a single doubt in my mind that Avatar would be a success and I laugh at the people who thought otherwise.

Haven't seen it yet though :/ rofl

I contributed to its success.

that's because everything else seemed weak albeit not bad compared to the 3D and special effects.

Well I'm sure it just resembled a braid, but that's just how they look.

Camaron said he was willing to make sequels if this one did well, so I hope he follows through with his promise. I would hate to have Avatar 2 out in 2019 though The turnaround needs to be alot faster!

The reason why Avatar took so long to make in the first place was because technology that could do the concept justice wasn't around until 2005.  That restriction is no longer there so Avatar 2 could be released as soon as December 2011.

If James Cameron pulls off topping himself...the man will see more than a jump start for his career. He just may very well have a Midas touch when it comes to making movies.

I've seen it three times. the first two in 2D and the third in 3D. The third time I went at the 3:15 pm matinee on a tuesday and the theater had more than 50 people there. And I live in a town with only ~45000 people.

Titanic is finished

*WARNING spoilers*

Also, the movie's story isn't groundbreaking, but it is very well executed and it keeps the world it paints believable once you accept the basic premises (this is a hallmark of all good fictional worlds, especially sci-fi ones). Also, while some of the scenes were weird (the tribal/ceremonial ones) others such as the one where he is capturing his banshee or when he shows up on that huge bird near the end were extremely well done. Also, the scene where the alien's hometree is destroyed was one of the best scenes I've watched in a long time and the 3D aspect was masterfully choreographed to pull you into the world.

*End Spoilers*

So, its not the best movie of all time by a long shot, but its combination of groundbreaking special effects and (gasp) a decent story is the reason why its been so successful. This is the movie that answers all of our questions about how a movie with really good modern special effects would do if it actually had a decent story to go along with it. After we got a taste of what the potential was with last year's The Dark Knight and agonized over the lack of anything even approaching a coherent story line in 2009's visually stunning but otherwise totally abysmal Transformers 2 and 2012, we have our answer.

I think we should give Cameron a large amount of praise even just for managing to rise above the flashy CGI-fests that have become the definition for 'blockbuster' movies nowadays. But he went farther than that alone and actually harnessed the potential of today's effects technology to create something that no one has ever really seen before: a fictional world that seems almost real. Where there are no fantasy elements or overt scientific impossibilities in sight and only a few easily-dismissed tribal weirdness to distract from the beauty of a computer-rendered bioluminescent forest shining in the glow of a gigantic planet that takes up half the sky.

The above sounds kind of wishywashy I know, but I really think that despite its flaws, that of all the movies released since Titanic that had a prayer of beating it at the box office, I would choose this one to be the one to do it.