While last week Avatar was snuggly fitting into its number five spot in the Worldwide Boxoffice of All Time, it has since cruised right past Pirates and Hobbits alike to cozy right up against the last film Cameron made to land at second place of all time. In 20 days.
Boxoffice Mojo charts it out:
ALL TIME WORLDWIDE
1. Titanic $1,842,879,955
2. Avatar $1,131,752,464
3. Return of the King $1,119,110,941
4. Dead Man’s Chest $1,066,179,725
5. The Dark Knight $1,001,921,825
Yup, so there it is. 20 days.
It still has a bit of a stretch to go to earn a spot in the Top 10 Domestic list. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is currently guarding that spot with a respectable $380million.
But what do we have coming up? Yeah, Avatar’s 4th weekend on the big screen. And it is setting its sights on that next goal with its current $352million.
So all it has to do is rake in some local $28m to take the spot. And in the first three weeks it has easily been bringing in the dough, and has shown only modest declines in boxoffice. Its very achievable.
I was skeptical about each benchmark this film breaks, so I am done doubting. Nothing this film does surprises me anymore.
20 days…..HOLY SHIT!
Go Cameron GO!
funny to see The Bat on the bottom all lonely and sad looking…..
well at least he’s not wearing hockey pants!
Interesting comments on repeat viewing. Everyone I know has seen it at least 2 or 3 times.
That’s amazing. I hope it does make it to #1, but it wont be easy still indeed. But if it does, it’ll be sad for me to see Dark Knight get dropped off the top 5. I can see it taking a Top 10 Domestic spot for sure.
This kind of thing also makes me think about all those people that have to go out and see it. And how allot of them have to be people who don’t go out to see movies very often or even not at all. For a movie to have that kind of draw is indeed astounding.
Not to mention, this is an epic Sci-Fi movie, which has got to be HUGE for the Sci-Fi movie genre.
These numbers are all great and all, but I want to see how they compare when you take in inflation and rising tickets prices. How many people really went to see it? That’s what I always know. Its easier to hit a higher mark when the acceptable ticket price today is $8.50 but how does that compare when it used to be $6.50?
There is a countermanding effect to the higher price as well. A higher price means you need a better movie to get some people out to theaters. If you want to know how many people really went to see it divide the boxoffice by the ticket price. ~133.1 million people (or repeated people) have seen Avitar
~283.5 million people saw titanic. About twice as many.
But does it really matter? I think when you weigh out how much more they made from higher ticket prices versus how much harder it is to get people to come due to higher prices, it has to level the playing field at least a little.
Top 10 from Box Office Mojo adjusted for inflation:
1. Gone With the Wind
2. Star Wars
3. The Sound of Music
4. ET
5. 10 Commandments
6. Titanic
7. Jaws
8. Dr. Zhivago
9. The Exorcist
10. Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs
James Cameron will take home 500 million for doing this “Avatar” gig. The guy’s untouchable when it comes to making billion dollar money for the movies he creates.
I don’t think this movie has much repeat viewing value.
Don’t get me wrong, this film was a spectical, I came out of the cinema, impressed and amazed, but I don’t want to see it again, not until it’s on DVD or TV at least.
TDK and Titanic had people seeing it mutiple times, titanic had silly ammounts of repeat viewings I don’t think avatar has the same effect.
But I still think it will draw in considerably more numbers, I think in the UK at least the Imax screening of it will continue to be full houses for some weeks to come.
It has tons of repeat value, the numbers speak for them self.
Depends how much box office competition it has.
I saw it three times and will probably go for a 4th.
Titanic is a great movie and so is Avatar. To me they are both winners. James Cameron did it again. I have seen all of his movies, and they are all pretty awesome.
I’d like to point out that john said in a reply to a post of mine that Avatar would never beat Transformers 2 Numbers….. Well Avatar is what 20-30 mill away from beating it. It took transformers 16 weeks to hit those numbers and avatar has come close to hitting them just shy of 3 weeks, take that Michael Bay….
Yes, everyone on the planet was anticipating this movie, no one anticipated its success.
I’m not even sure it will beat TDK domestic…too many fanboys seeing TDK over and over and over…
Never underestimate the power of blue, make-up wearing chicks.
hope the same thing will happen to “smurf” movie :P
Derek, you do realize there was no blue makeup. Unless you were suggesting that they were blue chicks, who also happen to be wearing makeup.
No one was painted blue for avatar.
I don’t know. I think it will move a head in the domestic standings, but its still hard to believe that it could get the all time world wide #1 spot. Does anyone know how Titantic was doing around the same period of its release?
Titanic at 20 days was only at $166 million domestic. It never had a huge weekend. It opened with $28.6 and it’s biggest weekend was $36 million. Now those may not sound like a lot but remember this was back in 1997. What made Titanic huge was it’s staying power. It made over $20 million every weekend for 10 weeks in a row. It opened on December 19th and would still be in theaters until September! It still brought in over a million on the weekends all the way until the start of August. Will Avatar beat it domestic… hard to say. Titanic had $600 and TDK had $533. Those two will be hard to beat but the #3, Star Wars is pretty reasonable to pass at $460 given Avatar’s current pace. That said it won’t get the chance to break Titanic’s record. Movies don’t stay in the theaters as long as they used to. The demand to put it out on video means box office windows grow shorter every year. Back in 1997, movies did not hit video until a year after it’s theatrical release and even then that was only rental, sell-thru (under $30) would be even later for most movies. Due to the box office and consumer demand, Titanic went straight to sell-thru pricing. Today with DVD’s every movie is at sell-thru.
Great analysis. One thing to add, though. A possible Oscar nomination could renew interest and renew box office about the time it would be playing out on its own; especially if the viewers are directed to IMAX $creenings.
I really don’t know how James Cameron does it LOL he is one lucky bastard and CANADIAN!
I don’t think it can top Titanic. I hope it can, but $712 million is a loooooong ways to go.
Ya, I agree. And if I remember correctly, Titanic was out for a vey long time in theaters. I doubt Avatar will get the same treatment. But if people keep goign to see it, who knows.
I hope it crushes Titanic, I didnt dislike Titanic but I have seen so many different Titanic movies before Cameron’s version I just didnt see the point of it. I surely didnt pay to see it at theater either!
Heck I liked the Poseiden Adventure (1972) better than Cameron’s Titanic.
Go Avatar!