The release of James Cameron's blockbuster science fiction movie Avatar: The Way of Water has generated excitement around the globe. The movie's opening weekend box office haul was a huge $435 million (about Rs. 3,598 crore). The movie is currently dominating the box office worldwide, but in Japan, The First Slam Dunk, an anime basketball movie, has edged it out.
A technical problem is another factor hurting the performance of Avatar: The Way of the Water in addition to the release of the animated basketball movie. Walt Disney's movie experienced technical issues during its crucial opening weekend in Japan, crashing screening equipment in some cinemas around the country, Bloomberg reported.
The news outlet further reported that the audiences who went to see the James Cameron sequel took to social media to report abrupt cancellations and staff apologising about machine troubles while issuing refunds. At least one theatre lowered the frame rate of the film by half in order to be able to screen it.
Many of the most cutting-edge visual technologies are used in the second Avatar movie, one of the most expensive projects in Hollywood history.
This includes a high frame-rate 3D format that demands a lot of data to be processed quickly. It seems to have succumbed to Japan's film industry's tardiness in upgrading to the most modern technology.
According to the news report, the precise cause of the errors is still unclear, although one theatre in Nagoya tried to fix the problem by lowering the required 48 frames per second to the standard 24 fps.
The theatre also issued a notice on Twitter: "Regarding the screening of the IMAX version of "Avatar: Way of Water," which will be released on Friday (December 16), it was originally planned to be screened in the high frame rate version (48 fps), but due to various circumstances, the normal frame rate version will be screened. We are excited to announce that the 24 fps version will be shown."
"We apologise for the short notice, but we would like to ask for the understanding of the customers who will be watching the IMAX version of
"Avatar: Way of Water" at our theater. Thank you," it added.