Twilight vs. Avatar
by Jason Helms
RedFence informants suffered monstrous lines Thursday night only to be blocked out of the Avatar screening by an enormous crowd of Twilight fans.
For those of you who don’t know, Avatar is the upcoming 3-D live-action film from James Cameron, the director of Aliens, The Terminator, and The Abyss.
While they couldn’t see any of the footage, they were able to snag this awesome bit of news:
On August 21st, Cameron will screen 15 minutes of footage at select Imax theaters for free. Apparently, this will be a special free screening, not tagged onto the beginning of another film like such previews in the past.
Whether the footage will be the 2-D or 3-D version is unclear. But either way, it’s a brilliant marketing strategy that suggests the producers feel the product is strong enough to sell itself.
Here is the entire misadventure from the man who lived it, Jason Helms:
Avatar: A new thriller from the king of blockbusters, James Cameron, and possibly the most anticipated film of this year’s Comic-Con . . . and this is as close as we got:
We left Los Angeles at 7 a.m., plenty of time to get to the 3 p.m. showing in San Diego. The blogosphere had been shivering with excitement over the purported 20-minute sneak preview. My brother and I couldn’t wait . . . well, maybe we could. Turns out we could wait for two and a half hours before even getting to the freeway because of a semitruck accident!
We didn’t get to Comic-Con until 1 p.m. Still plenty of time, right?
For those of you who’ve never been to Comic-Con, the wait for the big stuff can sometimes be over an hour long. We figured our two-hour head start was plenty. However, we neglected to account for the Twilight tweens.
New Moon, the latest Twilight movie, had a sneak preview just before Avatar, meaning there were roughly five thousand twelve-year-old vampires camped outside Hall H. This left only 1,500 open seats. Fortunately, the Twilighters left just before our event. Unfortunately, nobody at Comic-Con noticed. We were held at the door with just a few people between us and the groundbreaking 3-D footage. The doors shut and the event coordinators said the hall needed to be dark for the clip.
The 20-minute clip.
The exclusive, 20-minute clip of the most anticipated movie this year.
The scene outside began to grow ugly. Teeth gnashed, babies wailed, mothers offered their children to the mercies of the event staff . . . to no avail. I actually heard a seven-year-old dressed like Yugi call one security guard a . . . well let’s just say a hair-raising combination of profanities.
I waved my press badge like a crucifix, trying to part the sea. Alas, it was too late. We had been passed over. Thumping explosions and distorted dialogue let us know that the movie had, um, explosions and dialogue. Other than that I can’t tell you much. There’s going to be a free sneak preview at select Imax theaters worldwide on August 21st, which we unanimously declared International Avatar Day. So there’s that.
Did I mention it’s in 3-D?
Stay logged on to RedFence all weekend for Comic-Con updates. Later tonight we should have write-ups about KICK-ASS and THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS!
Header art based on an image by ajagendorf25
