GeekGasm: Avatar Shines All Over Fox Football Sunday and World Series
On Sundays I am like a major sports junkie, my NFL Sunday ticket and I revel in watching 32 teams duke it out for NFL supremacy. Today as I sat down to watch all the teams play endlessly awaiting the Farve rematch against the Packers in Lambeau for the first time as a Viking. While watching the Fox pre-game show I was told by head panel anchor, Kurt Menafee, that they would be airing a new International Trailer for Avatar.
I couldn’t ignore the presence of the film’s buzz all over the NFL all day on Fox, with extended TV spots (cut versions of the same trailer) periodically during the games.
I am really impressed with Fox and their marketing attempt due to the fact that not much buzz about the film occurred after Avatar Day with folks outside the fanboys. Obviously Comic-Con was an attempt to get the buzz started through the fanboys but even so, Avatar, is a hard thing to explain to those that do not follow the film world closely like we all do.
The latest trailer does a lot giving you the premise of the story while packaging an epic soundtrack with lots of crisp and beautiful shots of the film even explaining the term Avatar and its use in the film. Fox, which generally gets the big ratings on TV for Sundays also had an extra event to package this Avatar campaign with post football and that is the little baseball game known as the World Series, which happens to have one the most followed franchises in the country playing in it, the Yankees. Naturally a smart move with the channel’s ratings to most likely carry into the evening by continuing the Avatar onslaught with TV spots and that is exactly what they have done. Avatar meet the biggest sports day this year probably until the bowl games and eventually the Super Bowl but will have seen the movie already when most of those occur.
So will this marketing buzz bomb bring the film’s interest to that general audience attention? Will it bring the Avatar excitement that is riveting all us fanboys to the mainstream?
All I can say is my parents, who do not follow this stuff, were watching the games and saw the trailer and couldn’t stop talking about it. My phone was going off all day with comments from friends who hadn’t really seen much getting pumped about the film which will hit theaters next month.
What are your thoughts on Avatar having a sports day all over NFL Sunday and the World Series?
Personally it shined and my excitement for the film is that much more intense.
Avatar opens in theaters everywhere December 18.
Avatar, is a live action film with a new generation of special effects, takes us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery as he leads an epic battle to save a civilization. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of “Titanic,” first conceived the film 14 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not yet exist. Now, after four years of actual production work, AVATAR delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.
