Yeah, Prometheus is probably a good bellwether for how ATMOM would have done. Also, please bear in mind that Cameron "producing" isn't as much of a selling point as Cameron actually DIRECTING, and that a year ago, Tom Cruise was seen more as a liability than a selling point.
Again, I mourn the loss of ATMOM and I really hope we still get it at some point. Maybe if Prometheus does well. But I'm just being realistic here, and Universal has been way more sympathetic to geek sensibilities than other studios, so I'm cutting them some slack. That's all.
The thing is, Ambler, I've made almost the exact argument you're making here in the past. That there's enough variability in success that it's worth everyone's time to make good movies that everyone's passionate about, market them well, and you'll probably do OK. But sadly, there IS blame to be cast on the audience here. I think studios could work to foster smarter audiences, too--they've increasingly been focusing in on the "teenage neanderthal" market and driven everyone else away; every so often they "rediscover" the female market, like they seem to be doing this year, but they mostly actively encourage a mindless, thuggish, consumerist mentality in their audiences. So I do place that on the studios to an extent. But here's the thing, Universal was trying harder than the others to foster good taste, and it wasn't sticking. Meanwhile, Disney has fostered some absolute pap recently, but they made the Avengers (and I guess John Carter, for some people) so all is forgiven!
It's more complicated than just saying "You made one bad movie, fuck you Universal!"
