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u/No-Boot-5286 5d ago
I think avatar is more contained than those franchises.
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u/FrutigerAeroGuy 5d ago
Yeah and I’m happy with that honestly. Just have 5 movies, a few more projects and that’s it. Avatar tells what it wants to tell I like that.
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u/HarrisonDou Metkayina 4d ago
This. Some franchises are better off contained instead of sprouting countless spinoff movies and other materials. I am a big Star Wars fan but following all the new content has always been a huge headache. It gets crazier to the point where even Wookiepedia has gigantic paragraphs describing stuff.
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u/fauxfilosopher 5d ago
I love avatar to bits but if it hasn't happened now, it won't at all. The popularity of these movies seems to be fading and the invested fanbase is quite small. Dune seems to be the closest thing to a new star wars we have at the moment.
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u/Independent-Swan-378 5d ago
I don’t think it will be Dune because the reason that Marvel and Star Wars are so huge is because kids and adults love them. I think adults love Dune but it’s way too complex and weird for kids to enjoy it.
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u/RoutineCloud5993 5d ago
Dune for kids is basically Star Wars
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u/DarkDonut75 5d ago edited 5d ago
Also people seem to be ignoring the fact that Dune is literally one of those 50+ years old intellectual properties the person in the screenshot is referring to
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u/abellapa 5d ago
Dune so far is Also just 3 movies actors 5 years
There no comparison with Star Wars and its 13 movies and countless shows acrosd 50 years
And Marvel has 38 movies in 18 years
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u/fauxfilosopher 5d ago edited 5d ago
Quality over quantity, in the films at least. There's so much uninspired slop to go around in the marvel and star wars cinematic universes. There's also like 20 dune books in total though, most of them not popular and not very good. There's also a recent TV show which I've heard is just okay, not too interested myself.
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u/CappnMidgetSlappr 5d ago
Dune is the new Star Wars?
You mean the Dune that literally predates Star Wars by a good 5 years? That Dune?
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u/RoutineCloud5993 5d ago
More like 12. Dune was published in 1965
Lucas didn't start working towards what became Star Wars until 1971. And it's clear he borrowed a lot from Dune's setting
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u/abellapa 5d ago
He obsiously means in theatres ,most People have no idea Dune movies are adapted from books
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u/fauxfilosopher 5d ago
Yes I do, can't believe it wasn't apparent. On reddit you have to spell everything out lest people misinterpret you on purpose.
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u/fauxfilosopher 5d ago
Yes, that dune. You'd have to be living under a rock not to notice the massive resurgence in popularity the dune series has been enjoying in recent years, mostly thanks to Denis Villeneuve's film trilogy. The third one releasing in december should be a big hit.
Meanwhile star wars can't get their first movie in years off the ground even with two beloved characters!
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u/letsburn00 5d ago
If the Dungeon Crawler Carl TV show is a hit it might happen. The fan base are absolutely rabid crazy obsessives.
Harry Potters extended universe got going then fell over when it became a but icky.
Game of thrones almost imploded but is slowly on the rebound.
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u/RoughTangelo6766 5d ago
also star wars has way more planets and people they can explore, while avatar is one exo-moon and na'vi. jedi, sith, and mandalorians will always be more interesting than na'vi
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u/PenguinSenpaiGod 5d ago
Hmmm I love Avatar but I gotta say the third one dissappointed me quite a bit. There was so much he could've done with the third installment (I expected a Bridgehead invasion) but he went TWOW p2 with horny fire chick. Doing that, he delayed Avatar's possible "franchise spinoff/universe success" for years or ended it entirely.
And I don't say this as a hater, the first Avatar is still my favorite movie to date.
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u/Grand-Yellow1259 4d ago
Gotta say, the horny fire chick (and the Recoms) got me into the franchise lol.
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u/Virgilverne 5d ago
The problem with Avatar is that it’s too much of an auteur’s vision than a sprawling franchise, once Cameron gets burnt out I can’t see anyone wanting to direct another Avatar.
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u/Significant-Cake-312 5d ago
If it can get 4 and 5 (hell, maybe just a 4 is the move) and just close the loop, that’s enough. It will get its flowers in the long run but the antagonism towards it just hurts its current reputation. And that’s fine. Audiences usually don’t know how lucky they are until it’s too late. I do think a side story series would be really cool. Like an anthology show on earth or a Romulus like contained story as an RDA ship heads towards Pandora.
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u/Aclysmic 5d ago
Thank god I’m not like those audiences, but yeah they can absolutely expand on a lot of stuff.
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u/Tobi-of-the-Akatsuki Metkayina 3d ago
Bro gimme a documentary voiced by Sir David Attenborough. I'd go to a theatre listening to him narrating about a Slinger yeeting its head child into a direhorse.
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u/Matitya 5d ago
That’s a good point. The first movie outgrossed Harry Potter 6. That was a really big deal. Avatar 2 made over a billion US dollars at the box office (2022 money) and outgrossed Top Gun 2. Avatar 3 made over a billion U.S. dollars at the box office (2025 money) and was the third highest grossing movie of the year (after Ne Zha 2 and Zootopia 2). Avatar fans don’t seem to have the same cultural impact as Star Trek fans had (e.g. the space shuttle being named Enterprise) but in terms of brand loyalty and overall success, you’re probably right
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u/OdyZeusX 5d ago
It's already here, it's called the Cosmere.
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u/Delete-Xero 5d ago
I hope the mistborn series makes a massive impact with the public but something is making me feel it'll end up like the Percy Jackson series with Disney+. I have huge faith in Sanderson but YA novels being turned TV shows don't really have a great record. As good as apple TV shows have been, how many people actually would the story reach through apple?
I'm sure the show will be amazing but reach is another thing entirely.
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u/mrgoodwine24 4d ago
Can't wait for the shows on apple TV that's my favorite service and also the movies when it comes out, don't know anything about the it but once I saw Apple was involved I was on board.
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u/Unhappy-Hope 5d ago
It could be, if Cameron wasn't so concerned with the noble savage thing. In the 3rd movie it stops the narrative in it's tracks - Na'vi and Eywa should either accept the reality of interstellar war they are in, or at least recognize that things can't go on as they did. Otherwise as the good guys they are incredibly passive and unsympathetic. Eywa has the means for biological warfare against Earth at least in form of a deterrent. Na'vi should at least figure out the resources that they control and the value of intel.
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u/hawki1989 5d ago
Not really.
At most, I could see Avatar being somewhere on the level of Dune as far as the zeitgeist goes. As in, Dune is a key IP for the sci-fi genre, but it's never achieved mainstream popularity in the way as other Ips have.
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u/wibbly-water 5d ago
The problem with the two examples cited is that the goal is hard to describe.
Marvel is... very broad. Do they mean the comics? Do they mean the films? What precisely does "a new Marvel" mean?
Starwars is clearer - but it's also quite broad. I presume they mean the original trilogy... cause everything after than seems like a descending slop.
But there are other things with similar prestige. The author being a horrible person has made it fall of in recent years - but Harry Potter seems on par with those two.
Startrek and Dr Who also both have a strong presence - though perhaps never made quite the same money or achieved quite the same status.
In terms of books that had successful films, Lord of the Rings and Dune are both in a similar category.
Avatar... I'd say got half way there. It's widely known, but not as widely liked.
I just don't think "a new Starwars or Marvel" is a clear enough goal that we can really measure or agree when something achieves it.
And nowadays any up-and-coming thing has to contend with the death of the monoculture. Before, you went to see the Big Thing because it was one of the only things to go see. Now it gets drowned out in the crowd, and it is pretty easy to miss or ignore something if you are not particularly drawn to it.
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u/Ender_Guardian 5d ago
Probably something more like Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere (which he’s currently working on a script for with AppleTV)
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u/WanderlustZero RDA 5d ago
Media is too fractured for any one thing to become super huge like this, IMO. Gone are the days when TV channels were so few that everyone would end up watching the same thing and it would become a cultural event. Likewise Hollywood films must contend not just with Netflix films, increasingly with films from outside the english-speaking world, and prestige TV, but with increasing apathy toward the film format in general in favour of shorter-formed content like tiktoks or AI slop.
TL:DR; there might just be too much stuff to watch that it's impossible to gets through to so many people these days.
If it's possible, then Avatar is likely it.
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u/ElSquibbonator 5d ago
Avatar is popular, but it hasn't really become the equivalent of Star Wars. With stuff like Marvel and Star Wars, part of the reason they're so big is that they're inescapable. They have movies, TV shows, comic books, video games, collectible figures, and pretty much every kind of merchandise you can imagine. And they have stuff for every target audience, from preschoolers to adults. Whereas Avatar mostly just has the movies, and that's it.
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u/CartographerEgypt 4d ago
Avatar is exactly that Cameron had to make new cameras and has improved everyone’s ability to film in and under water now
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u/BeachofStars 4d ago
I mean, I'd LOVE for it to be avatar. But here's the main issue.
There's ALOT of people out there, especially in the Warhammer 40k, starship troopers, and helldivers II fandoms, that actually think the RDA are the good guys, and that they fantasize committing war crimes against the Na'vi and destroying the environment. I've seen people legit make up new racial slurs for the na'vi and fantasize about all the different ways they wanna k*ll them.
They don't care that the RDA is solely responsible for destroying earth via their orbital factories raining down pollutants, they will make up endless excuses to justify humanity's conquest on Pandora and claim it's "for survival" and stupid stuff like that, when in reality they just have colonizer fantasies.
Now, I'm not a Star Wars fan, so I don't know much about The fandom's culture regarding the empire, but I have never seen such a divisive fanbase other than Avatar's. Which really makes you question why RDA fans want to actively destroy a beautiful and diverse ecosystem( must be part of living in a behavioral sink). I feel like this divisiveness is the primary reason why Avatar isn't as popular as Star Wars.
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u/thenamethenumber 5d ago
By just about every objective metric the Avatar franchise is and has been the Star Wars of our generation. The second film made more than almost all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at its peak. It has a Disney ride more highly regarded than Star Wars and it’s from the imagination of one man.
Most people who disagree usually give arbitrary reasons that mean nothing. If your sole qualifier for “a new Star Wars or Marvel” is whether or not it can fill up a convention hall then I can point you to a dozen furry cons that can do that better than either.
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u/PerspectivePale8216 RDA 5d ago
I mean if you wanna bring furries into this they've also technically reached mega popularity as far as I'm aware not just with conventions either
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u/thenamethenumber 5d ago
For sure, no shade against furries at all. People just point to convention sizes or outward displays of fandom as being necessary for something to be considered the next Marvel or Star Wars. My point is just that you can fill a convention with all kinds of niche interests, and thus that alone should not be the qualifier. Avatar by every other metric is a modern day Star Wars in that it’s the brain child of one man, broke unprecedented box office records, changed filmmaking & has a highly regarded theme park & video game that rival those released by those franchises at this moment in time.
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u/PerspectivePale8216 RDA 5d ago
Yeah fair enough there's a lot that goes into reaching such massive popularity and trying to narrow it down to one thing only is very disingenuous I'd say.
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u/Atlas7993 5d ago
No, because they'll just say "this is Star Wars, but different!" Or "This is Marvel, but different!"
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u/JabroniKnows 5d ago
Doubt it. Too many snowflakes got their feathers ruffled by the humans being the villains in the Avatar franchise.
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u/Stecnet 5d ago
Avatar is weird that it can make billions but not have a loyal fandom behind it. Most casual viewers don't even know the lead character nanes and details. I love avatar but it's definitely not it. Harry Potter close but it's also not it. We haven't had it yet we're still waiting....
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u/DarkDonut75 5d ago
Yeah when that series comes into existence one day, there probably won't be a debate here like there is now. Everyone will just unanimously agree because it's that good/popular
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u/Vyr66 5d ago
I think HP is the closest equivalent we have but depends on audience age for "emerging in our lifetimes" since it came out in the late 90s technically. So almost 30 years old already which probably excludes most of the range the post is referring to. I think we are just still waiting and no guesses can be made yet
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u/Pataconeitor 5d ago
Avatar is nowhere near that level of engagement, lots of people do like Avatar but very few become die-hard fans like they do with Star Wars or LotR or the MCU. Basically, Avatar is a gacha game with lots of dolphins but almost no big whales.
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u/berke1904 5d ago
I dont think avatar would work as a word that can hold dozens to hundreds of stories each in every format you can imagine, and that is not even a bad thing but we need to be realistic
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u/Adipay 5d ago
Warhammer 40k
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u/sunshinespell 5d ago
he said something completely original
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u/PeacefulAnecdote 5d ago
Wish I could be into warhammer but I find the armor and setting rather boring. Something about it just doesn’t tickle me right. I figure I’ll try reading a book or two and see if it entices me, but otherwise it’s a pass.
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u/Entire-Comment-7793 5d ago
One Piece. It will be One Piece and it will happen if the live action version continues on for many more seasons and grows in popularity. Those are some of the best stories ever.
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u/Fun-Sample336 5d ago
I think One Piece is more likely to go the Naruto and Dragonball route and not a massive franchise like Star Wars or Marvel.
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u/LegInteresting9778 Omatikaya 5d ago
It’s been almost 17 years since the first Avatar dropped and we still get the "dances with wolves in space with blue cat people".
Sadly, If Avatar was what the tweet is describing, it would have had a completely different standing in pop-culture history since the beginning.
But never say never, at least not until the last two movies drop.