Here We Go Again.. AVATAR Budget Is $500 Million?

The question of whether James Cameron‘s 3D epic AVATAR will be a success cannot seem to escape the other question about how the budget actually cost? A while ago, rumor said $200 million, while other say it’s $300 Million and now NY TIMES has tried to cause panic and hysteria by rounding up the production and $150 Million global marketing budget for AVATAR all the way up to… $500 Million! When I read it, I chuckled because I remember… Keanu Reeves’ dissing the studio that won’t greenlight COWBOY BEBOP movie because they say it would take half a billion dollars in production.

With this $500 Million price tag, the article that goes out of its way to sound intellectual in the field of business, basically questioned if the movie will be able to break even, let alone make profit.
It even suggested that “Mr. Cameron would effectively defer much of his payout until the studio and others were compensated, despite his years of labor on the movie.”
You can read the rest OVER THERE
But why would James Cameron go into this without thinking of return on investment?! It’s just silly. Sure he’d like to realize his dream that he had when he was a kid but if this $500 Million deal turns out to be true, then it’s plain bad business.
My friend Jeremy said AVATAR still might run the risk of becoming a victim of big hype… it’s all great until the opening day and word of mouth starts to spread, as much as I don’t wish Cameron failure, I wouldn’t rule out that possibility either.
And last but not least and I gotta go with John Campea of TheMovieBlog on this one, AVATAR may be the better movie in terms of quality, but it won’t defeat TRANSFORMERS 2 at the box office.