thee most important movie?

Jim Cameron screened 24 minutes of footage from Avatar at the Cinema Expo in Amsterdam last night, moistening fanboy panties the world over. THR reports the budget at $300 million, which would make it the most expensive film ever. Though earlier this year, Time Magazine reported the budget as “in excess of $300 million” only to later recant and say they meant “in excess of $200 million.” Hard to say whether THR was basing their numbers on the incorrect Time report or whether they have figures of their own. Anyway, /Film collected some reactions to the footage reported anonymously to other websites (yes, we went there. welcome to the internet). Set phasers to “breathless”:

“The Insider” files his (1,000+ word) report on ComingSoon: “3-D until now has been used as a gimmick. I’m still feeling the after effects of this jaw-dropping experience… These creatures seem so real, that within minutes you forget you’re watching an enormous and very blue CGI character. Even the eyes are totally convincing. The characters have real personalities and a soul.”

“Anonymous” over on IESB: “If it’s anything like the scenes I saw, it’s going to be one of the best movies of the decade.”

GJKooijman on Twitter: “is mindblown” “Avatar will change movie industry forever.” … “It’s nothing you can imagine, it’s real. Cameron made a new planet and took a cam there.” … “THIS WILL CHANGE MOVIES FOREVER. Trust me, it will.”

UCSNord: “Cameron told audience each frame of finished film takes 30-50 hrs to render, then double that up for 3D.” [Hmm... Let's say the film is 100 minutes long (and it's longer than that) - that's 6,000 seconds. Multiplied by 24 frames per second, that's 144,000 frames. Times 100 hours per frame, that's 14.4 million hours of rendering. That means the film should be ready to go in almost 1,644 years. I wonder if it will still be considered science fiction then.]