Primitive War, as of writing this, has grossed $1.2 million against a $7 million budget.
Avatar: Fire and Ash has an estimated budget of $275 million and a predicted box-office take of $1.2-$2 billion, though that may be domestic-only, meaning the total worldwide box-office will be significantly higher.
These two films are very much at the opposite end of the scale when it comes to budgetary constraints within Hollywood. One film was made for about 1/4 of the budget it was predicted, and the other film was made for an insanely high budget. One of the important things for both of these films is the effect on each of them. Avatar: Fire and Ash, as part of the ongoing Avatar series, is made to deliberately be one of the most technically advanced films in Hollywood.
The Avatar films are specifically designed to be watched in the best format possible, specifically IMAX and Dolby 3D. These formats allow the film to be seen in its absolute best way. They are designed to be technically advanced and incredible to look at. When it comes to these films, there is a slight problem. The story of the Avatar films is almost non-existent, and the writing of the characters and the dialogue is not exactly poor, but it’s definitely a lesser consideration. To all intents and purposes, the Avatar films are very much like paintings in an art gallery. They are designed to be looked at another all they feel like they’re made for.
The number of people involved in creating films like Avatar is huge. The number of digital artists and other departments, for sound, technical work, all of the cinematography and all of the digital rendering is enormous. There are 100s, potentially thousands, of people involved in these films. This is in stark contrast to Primitive War, a film that was originally requested to have a budget of around $25 million but was finished with a budget of $7 million. The other major difference between the two films is that most of the VFX work for Primitive War was completed by the director Luke Sparke, who did most of the technical work on the film.
When I was watching Primitive War I saw that the VFX and the technical work done on the film made some modern Hollywood “blockbusters” look really short in comparison. Does the VFX work on Primitive War compared to the Avatar films? Of course not, it would be ridiculous to think that it did, and I think the director Luke would agree with me. He’s not trying to compete with a film like Avatar. The big point here, between Primitive War and Avatar, is that Primitive War is a well-written film with an enjoyable storyline and believable characters [up to a point], whereas the characters in Avatar are mostly two-dimensional and pretty much unbelievable.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Avatar films. I fully appreciate the artistry and the work that goes into them, and watching them on the big screen in 3D with the incredible sound systems really is an absolute wonder in the cinema, but that is all I remember them for. They lack any soul or nuance, but a film like Primitive War gives you emotional characters. It gives you a sense of completion of a storyline. It gives you fully realised characters that you actually care for.
What Primitive War does is show you what can be done with passion, with a love of the project, the willingness, and the ability to do the work yourself. It proves that you can make a good film with more than acceptable VFX for an exceptionally low budget in comparison. Primitive War is a perfect example of what Hollywood perhaps should be taking. The problem I feel like Primitive War has is that, because it was an independent film to a degree, it didn’t have the huge marketing of a studio behind it. What that meant was that the film didn’t get pushed out for a wide release in multiple places at once, with multiple showings in each of those places.
Specifically for the UK Primitive War, in the cinema I use anyway, he’s only being shown on 2 days for a single showing each day. The time shown begins at 9:30 PM. With the film being a little over 2 hours, a showing starting at that time means that it won’t finish until just after midnight, allowing for adverts and trailers. Now I don’t drive, so I have to use public transport to get around anywhere, and when a film finishes at that later time, all of the public transport is done for the day. I also have an extremely low budget for things, and so this month I had to use a chunk of my budget to get a taxi home from the cinema to where I live. On this one occasion, I didn’t mind doing it because it was a film I had been very eager to see, and it turned out to be worth the money. If the film was getting a full release, with multiple showings across various days, I would go back, and I would be watching it at least three more times.
At this point in history, moviemaking is in a very weird place. So many people complain that there are not enough new, original films being made; any other film like Primitive War has mostly been ignored by Hollywood. Films like this need to get the audiences so that the world can see that there is a market for them, and not just a market for remakes and sequels and reimaginings of previously existing IPs. Yet the amount of money Avatar will make, in comparison to the amount of money Primitive War will make, means that Hollywood is going to continue making sequels or prequels or remakes or spin-offs of existing movies.
That is one of the biggest shames of the modern movie world that original ideas don’t get pushed because people don’t think they’re going to make money, and yet if they got the marketing, if they got pushed and if they got promoted, they would absolutely break their budget, they would absolutely make a lot of profit. Premier towards a perfect example of this it is a film that is getting almost exclusively positive reviews and everyone that sees it says how much they’ve enjoyed it, how good it looks and how well it’s been made. If it got the advertising, if it got the marketing and if it got full runs in cinemas, it would smash the budget. I think legitimately, with the right marketing behind it could make 10 or 20 times the budget that it was made for.
All I can hope is that more films like this get made and that more people get to see them, so Hollywood can see original ideas do still have a place in the market. I love film, so I will see the remakes and the sequels, but I also support independent film, whether it be a film made with no budget, low budget or mid-range budget like Primitive War, because, for me, independent filmmaking is the very foundation that movie making is built on. Without it, we’re going to lose a lot of incredible future directors until eventually all we are left with is an insipid remake on top of remake on top of remake on top of remake, and that will be a terribly sad day for movies across the world.
