The most expensive movie of all time is going to suck.

Today, the most expensive movie of all time is hitting theatres. James Cameron's "Avatar".

The movie is reputed to have cost $500 million to make. That's half a billion dollars. That amount of money can buy two whole African countries.

And what will we get for this money? We will get 2 hours of amazing, unbelievable, impressive visual CGI effects. These effects will be awesome for about 5 minutes. Then the boredom will set in.

That's sort of the way it is with fireworks. You're interested for a few minutes, then the mindless explosions get boring.

A good movie needs a good story, with good characters and strong writing. Look at Star Wars. The original Star Wars had lame special effects but an amazing story. The new Star Wars had great effects, but a lame story.

Which were better? Not one person will tell you the new Star Wars movies are superior. Not one.

I'm skeptical that a half billion dollar movie will be any good. Why? Because they spent all the money on special effects. They didn't put any resources into characters or scripts.

Why did they spend half a billion on special effects? Because the script was so bad they needed dazzling effects to make the movie work.

Either way, the movie is going to suck.

Post script:

(By the way, I'm not saying Avatar won't make profit. I think that's almost a forgone conclusion because we'll be hit over the head with the hype and people will go see it. I'm saying the movie won't be very good. It can't be.)

(Let's look at a couple examples. 1) Pirates of the Caribbean. Made a ton of money - but the movies were mediocre at best. The last 2 were downright boring. 2) Spiderman - made a ton of money. But the movies got worse and worse.

Finally, let's look at a counter-example. Lord of the Rings. Great special effects and great movies. So it is possible that Avatar could pull it off, just not very likely.)