"Avatar" is leading the way in Oscar nominations, alongside "The Hurt Locker," but James Cameron has failed to beat the record set out by another ambitious Canadian director – himself.
Cameron's 3-D blockbuster scored nine nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, but couldn't match the feat he accomplished with 1997's "Titanic." The epic tale of the ill-fated ocean liner became only the second movie in history to score 14 nominations (alongside 1950's "All About Eve") and 11 wins, (tying the record set by 1959's "Ben-Hur," and later matched by 2003's "Return of the King") including Best Picture and Best Director.
At $2 billion and counting, "Avatar" has surpassed "Titanic's" worldwide box office record of $1.84 million to become the highest-grossing movie ever.
The budget for "Avatar" (at an estimated $300 million) tops "Titanic's" budget by $100 million, and the technological advances and special effects used in his latest film have revolutionized movie making.
"Avatar" definitely had the potential to give Cameron a new record, picking up steam by winning hardware for both Best Picture and Best Director at the Golden Globes, so what went wrong?
It looks like animated blue people have nothing on real-life actors.
"Titanic" earned Oscar nods both for Kate Winslet (Best Actress) and Gloria Stuart (Best Supporting Actress) but "Avatar" was shut out of all the acting categories, despite Cameron's bolstering that performance capture empowers actors.
The movie's studio, Fox, also campaigned that "Avatar's" lead actors Sam Worthington (Jake Sully) and Zoë Saldana (Neytiri) worked just as hard doing performance capture work as actors without animated avatars. But can these portrayals really go up against what some are calling the performances of their careers for veterans George Clooney and Sandra Bullock?
Apparently the Academy didn't think so.
Even though it won't break "Titanic's" record, "Avatar" could still sweep up at the Oscars. The Academy does like to pat itself on the back for making such great strides in filmmaking and could honour the most expensive movie ever made for that very reason.
If Cameron does take the top awards of the night, everyone will be paying close attention to his acceptance speech. It has taken him over a decade to live down his "I'm the king of the world" comment, made after winning the Best Director award in 1998 for "Titanic."
The director was recently quoted in "Entertainment Weekly" saying that after jumping up and making a fool of himself with his acceptance speech for "Titanic" he was sure no one wanted to see that again. "Or maybe they want me to win again to see if I can make an even bigger fool of myself," he added.
Whatever happens, there are already plans for at least one "Avatar" sequel and that's one area where it has "Titanic" beat. What can we say? That ship has already sunk.
