Box Office: Avatar beats Titanic, but still lags behind The Phantom Menace

Avatar may have beat Titanic in terms of cold hard cash, but it still has yet to catch up with The Phantom Menace when it comes to the amount of tickets sold, Entertainment Weekly points out. And when the domestic box office numbers are adjusted for inflation, it’s only #26 – all three original trilogy films and TPM are higher, along with Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., The Exorcist and all-time champ Gone With the Wind. (A New Hope is #2.)

Granted, all this stat-pushing is petty and useless, but hey: We’re interested, aren’t we? And on that note, check below the cut for a blast from the past: The ad George Lucas took out in Variety when Titanic took the top spot from Star Wars. Continue reading “Box Office: Avatar beats Titanic, but still lags behind The Phantom Menace

EUbits: The Gambit marches on

Gambit: Siege. The official site has brewed up the summary for Karen Miller’s final Clone Wars novel. Beware of spoilers: The book is a direct sequel to next month’s Gambit: Stealth.

And in other previews… Teasing the next installment of John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe of the Sith, coming February 10th.

Gaming, sort of. Artist Terese Nielsen talks to StarWars.com about her character portraits for WOTC’s latest miniature line.

Interview. Jason Fry talks Atlas with Gelf Magazine.

Namesake corner. Neat Mara Jade drawing.

Is the era of the Star Wars mega-series coming to an end?

Sue Rostoni, when asked about future plans for the Expanded Universe, said this today:

Honestly, we’re not presently looking at another long series — more stand-alones, duologies, and trilogies. At least that’s where we’re headed today.

After Legacy of the Force’s Mando-derailing and a (sorry) lackluster start to Fate of the Jedi, I’m all for something on a smaller scale, at least for a while.

Gate Geek – Own the Stargate

A year-long auction of Stargate memorabilia has begun.  The auction, run by the same company that did last year’s Battlestar Galactica sell-off, is supposedly of items that the production company knew they’d not need for future movies. (via)

Of course, this only reinforces the fan perception that the new straight-to-DVD movies will never happen.  MGM has been unable to gather the funding to launch them in the current economy.  But after 15 years, one can imagine that their prop storage is full to busting at the seams.  Still, Stargate fans enjoy some good angst, so the worry continues.

Actor David Hewlett (Rodney McKay) has proposed another idea on his Twitter, though:

Okay, here’s the plan: We buy everything, put it all back together, and then we make the Stargate Atlantis movie. http://bit.ly/8qJ2tQ

Avatar and The Clone Wars: ‘Trespass’

So pretty much the entire world has heard of James Cameron’s monument to 3-D visual effects, Avatar, and quite a few have ended up comparing the story to Dance with Wolves, or The Last Samurai, or other white-guilt storylines. But, really – most of the story elements have been seen in the first season episode ‘Trespass’ in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Continue readingAvatar and The Clone Wars: ‘Trespass’”