$278M XMAS WEEKEND IS BIGGEST EVER! ‘Avatar’ Back On Top By Beating ‘Sherlock Holmes’; 3D Technopic Takes In $617M Worldwide; ‘Alvin Squeakquel’ Opens #3

COMMENTS (494)

• RE: Avatar

  Too early to tell what the repeat business will be…Can it top a $billion worldwide? Maybe, but almost certainly “Titanic’s” record is safe (and with 12 years of inflation and tix price increases, even if it gets near $1.8 B, it’ll be a LOT less admissions than the Leo/Kate Boat show)….I have to ask how many theaters internationally have 3D capabilities? The higher tix prices for 3D is def helping keep Avatar’s gross aloft.

  Personally, I think it’s a visually amazing and technologically groundbreaking movie…but I wish that the script had been MUCH stronger…predictable to the letter and punctuation with little sense of wonder (like the first time you saw “Star Wars Eps 4″ or “Close Encounters”), very little “rooting interest” for any of the characters (because they are written so blandly and from the “archetype 101″ school of screenwriting…where are the vivid, conflicted characters ala Ripley, Sarah Connor et al from his earlier work???)…spectacle aside, the weak script/story might keep “Avatar” from the billion dollar club (at least it may blunt the gross down the road in North America…internationally, “pretty, shiny pictures” seem to carry the day – see ridiculous international return for the ass-bad “2012″). Nuff said. Happy holidays….

  Comment by bob — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 12:41pm PST  Reply to this post

• I watched Avatar in 3D. It made my eyes drunken. The optical thing really gets you going, even so I still see some way to a really nice 3D experience. But not a problem of the movie just the technicals.

  The cinema was full of 25 up to 50 year olds, at tuesday 4pm. Mostly male. But I will go again. At least one more time. And will never watch this movie on flat TV.

  And I will go again a lot more into cinema. But only 3D. Hell yes, Avatar brought me back.

  So thats the story of Avatar. If you ask me.

  Comment by teiger — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 12:47pm PST  Reply to this post

• That’s just for Wed though – and possibly the weekend as it’s Christmas and Alvin is for kids. I think Avatar will have legs from repeat viewings. I know people who are seeing it in all 3 formats, 3D, IMAX and even 2D…

  Comment by Roxanne — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 1:10pm PST  Reply to this post

• Not sure where all the Avatar naysayers are coming from… $16 mil every day this week signals a small drop off in its second weekend. $300 million domestic at least and $500 mil overseas is pretty much the lower end of what’s going to happen.

  That puts it at $800 million, excluding any merchandising and product tie-ins. Could come close to $1 billion as well. Profitable for Fox and perhaps the kind of film that would convince them to make more original films.

  Comment by Ross — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 1:26pm PST  Reply to this post

• Ken: Oh, that’s easy. Princess and the Frog is bombing, because audiences are prejudiced against 2-d. If it was CG, it’d have done better.

  Comment by D.Z. — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 1:27pm PST  Reply to this post

• As for Titanic, yes Avatar’s making more than it per day, but, if I recall, Titanic was always on top until Lost in Space. Never once got to #2 until then, but I could be wrong.

  Comment by D.Z. — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 1:35pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Wow, you are right…I knew Titanic was #1 for a long time, but I didn’t realize it got knocked out of first by that awful Sci-Fi movie Lost In Space. Now that was a piece of crap! Hahaha

    But yes, Titanic was #1 for 15 weeks. Avatar won’t be able to do that.

    I did a little research and its funny how many bad movies came out during Titanic’s 15 week run at #1.

    Movies included: “Firestorm”, “Fallen”, “Hard Rain”, “Half Baked”, “Spice World” (hahaha), “Phantoms”, “Great Expectations”, “The Replacement Killers”, “Blues Brothers 2000″, “The Wedding Singer” (ok, I actually liked this movie), “Sphere”, “Krippendorf’s Tribe”, “Dark City” (ok, this one was pretty good too), “U.S. Marshals”, “Twilight-1998″ (LOL…There was actually a Twilight movie with Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman and Reese Witherspoon – It has nothing to do with those Vampire movies, and it bombed…Would’ve been funny to see Paul Newman as the Vampire and Gene Hackman as the topless Werewolf…HAHAHAHAHAHA – Reese Witherspoon does have a nude scene however in this Twilight movie…Hahaha), “The Big Lebowski” (great movie, but only made $5.5 million opening weekend for 6th place), “The Man in the Iron Mask” (not a bad movie, and it almost beat Titanic in its 13th week at #1), “Chairman of the Board” (how did this classic Carrot Top movie not beat Titanic? hahaha, just sarcasm), “Primary Colors”, “Wild Things”, “Mr. Nice Guy”, “Grease (Re-issue)”, “The Newton Boys”…

    Finally another crappy movie (“Lost In Space”) beat Titanic in its 16th weekend in theaters.

    So, as you can see, Titanic had no competition at all during its 15 weeks at #1.

    Movies that Avatar has to face in just the next 10 weeks:
    “Daybreakers”, “Youth in Revolt”, “The Book of Eli”, “The Spy Next Door”, “The Lovely Bones”, “Extraordinary Measures”, “Legion (2010)”, “The Tooth Fairy”, “Edge of Darkness”, “When in Rome”, “Dear John”, “From Paris with Love”, “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief”, “Valentine’s Day”, “The Wolfman”, “Shutter Island”, “The Crazies”, “A Couple of Dicks”, and “Alice in Wonderland (2010)”…

    Ok, so there are quite a few stinkers in that lot, but in today’s movie trends, even something like “The Tooth Fairy” can top Avatar by Avatar’s 5th week in theaters. My guess is that “The Book Of Eli” will be the one to knock Avatar out of first.

    Comment by Charl — Monday December 28, 2009 @ 12:13pm PST  Reply to this post

• Interesting that “Up in the Air” is not expanding better. “The Blind Side” is beating it in its sixth week of release. Perhaps, it’s not the movie to win Best Picture after all.

  Comment by Jason — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 1:36pm PST  Reply to this post

• You all seem to be treating Wednesday as a typical weekday… $16m is nice, sure. But it’s a holiday week Wednesday with new releases. Look at the numbers from 12/25 and 12/26 last year – $16m is not out of line with what such massive game-changing films as Marley & Me, National Treasure 2, and Night at the Museum made in the same general period.

  Avatar will do pretty well. But it will not do Titanic numbers, and it will not set any significant records.

  Comment by Phil Sandifer — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 1:39pm PST  Reply to this post

• Ken wrote:
  Even more incredible, how in the world could the Princess and the Frog have failed, after all the publicity, good word-of-mouth, and John Lasseter’s help??????

  From the evidence in the trailers, it looked more like the bring-your-B-game level of a lot of the post-ALADDIN in-house Disney animated product.

  Comment by Terry McCarty — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 1:56pm PST  Reply to this post

  • I saw Princess and the Frog yesterday with a small child.

    What a catastrophe. The first third was fine, but most of the second two-thirds looked and sounded more like some kind of video storyboard version of the movie than an actual Disney movie.

    I understand that the production team might have had to skimp some on the animation, but the sound wasn’t even that great.

    The people who made this movie started with a great concept, the bones of a pretty good script, fine animation talent, guaranteed distribution, and what would seem to be a fairly big initial budget. So, what the heck went wrong?

    Comment by A spouse — Monday December 28, 2009 @ 8:17am PST  Reply to this post

• Ken, a bad day for Cameron? – what are you a moron? 16m on a wednesday a week after release, his movie finally in the theaters to incredible audience reception. No sign of it slowing down at all. Get a grip son.

  Comment by arthur — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 2:02pm PST  Reply to this post

• Avatar has the 3rd highest Wednesday ever, and it’s a bad day for Cameron? haha

  Also, is D.Z. the same moronic D.Z. that posts on Hollywood Elsewhere? I hope not. Everything he says is garbage. He’s also the genius who predicted Transformers 1 wouldn’t make more than $150 million. Do not pay attention to any crap he writes.

  Comment by Jse33 — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 2:26pm PST  Reply to this post

• Princess and the Frog is doing terrible because White tweener and younger girls don’t find the African-American emphasis compelling. They’re just not interested. Yes, it is “nice” that Disney played “diversity” … but audiences are what they are. Just not interested. There’s not enough Black tweener and younger girls to make the movie profitable — Tyler Perry’s stuff pulls from the broad spectrum of Black demos, and are dirt cheap besides.

  Avatar is somewhat in the same boat — appealing to mostly Sci-Fi fans and those who like CGI effects. It would appear anyway that those who wanted to see it (in 3D) saw it already, and there is no compelling story to pull people in just a visual feast which gets boring after a while. Cameron had (for the time) similar jaw-dropping “how did he DO that?” effects in the Abyss and no one cared either. I don’t see Avatar’s wide/deep appeal like either Terminator or Titanic, and note a lot of the box office came from the IMAX 3 D showings (around 50% IIRC) so I would imagine folks would pass if they don’t have Blu-Ray/Hi-Def at home for rentals. [Rentals are now outpacing home video sales ... ouch!]

  Alvin I agree is not competing with Avatar, just a sign that the Avatar movie does not really have a compelling story. Titanic had that for girls/women, and Leonardo Di Caprio when he was young.

  If Avatar had cost about half what it did, it would probably make money. As it stands, my guess is that if Fox is lucky it *might* cover its production+marketing costs. Sigh. How the hell was that movie made for $300 million? CGI render farms can’t cost THAT much can they? [For my money LoTR was far more impressive, particularly given that it looked "real" not CGI-fakey.]

  Comment by whiskey — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 2:29pm PST  Reply to this post

• The real story is AVATAR doing 16 mil for 3 consecutive days.

  Comment by Geoff — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 4:18pm PST  Reply to this post

• As long as Cameron refrains from making stupid anti-American comments, Avatar should do well in the DVD/Blu-Ray sales now that more households are buying LCD flat screens and 5.1 or better sound systems.

  Comment by charles — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 5:18pm PST  Reply to this post

• TITANIC was an anomaly. I even watched just to see what buzz was about. AVATAR is doing the same thing. I like AVATAR better than TITANIC.

  Comment by Jerry — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 5:58pm PST  Reply to this post

• I don’t understand why people are so excited about Avatar making $16 million a day for the past three days. It seems to me that for a mega-budget sci-fi blockbuster, Avatar is underperforming.

  Look at the domestic receipts for the first five days of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. (Source: Box Office Mojo.)

  Wed: $62 mil.
  Thurs: $29 mil.
  Fri: $36 mil.
  Sat: $40 mil.
  Sun: $32 mil.

  Transformers 2 made considerably more than $16 million a day for its first 5 days (it slipped to $15 million on day 6). Its cumulative total after 6 days was $215 million. Avatar’s cumulative total after 6 days is $125 million.

  I guess people are assuming Avatar will hang around longer than Transformers. But it’s too early to know. Right now, it looks to do about half the business Transformers did.

  Comment by sauropod — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 5:58pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Another fucking dope. Man, I thought Deadline readers were at least SOMEWHAT knowledgeable about the industry. Those Transofromers numbers are for the extended, HOLIDAY WEEKEND OPENING of the film, which happened IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SUMMER. Of course the WEEKEND numbers are going to be bigger than Avatar’s mid-winter WEEKDAY numbers.

    Comment by Dan — Saturday December 26, 2009 @ 7:56am PST  Reply to this post

  • Sauropod,

    What do you have to say now? Avatar is making over $70 million in its second weekend. Transformers 2 only made $42 million in its second weekend. Avatar will make more in its third weekend than Transformers made in its second weekend.

    By the end of its third weekend, Avatar will have close to $300 million and Transformers 2 had $339 million. Do you see how Avatar is catching up? After their first respective weekends, Avatar was trailing Transformers 2 by $123 million. By the end of the third weekend, it will trail by only about $40 million or so. And Transformers 2 only made $24 million in its third weekend, while Avatar will make $45 million+.

    That should be simpler math for you to deal with. If Avatar just happens to follow the same frontloaded downward spiral of Transformers 2 after a $45 million third weekend, Avatar will end up with around $406 million. And since Avatar is not frontloaded like Transformers 2, it’s obvious that it will make more than Tranformers 2 made.

    Comment by Charl — Saturday December 26, 2009 @ 6:15pm PST  Reply to this post

  • another nostrodomus

    Comment by cary s — Wednesday March 24, 2010 @ 4:54pm PDT  Reply to this post

• I think some of you are missing the point. A movie as big as Avatar SHOULD NOT BE LOSING THE TOP SLOT TO ANYTHING, Especially since last weekend was a snow out and this weekend is a holiday week. It should be making up cash for those who missed the opening week and then some. HANGOVER was #! for 3 weeks straight!!! Dark Knight was #1 FOR MONTHS until Tropic Thunder. Avatar should be smashing the box office not falling to an 80′s cartoon.

  Comment by elle — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 6:16pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Elle,

    You meant that Dark Knight was #1 for a month, not “MONTHS”, right? And Hangover was only #1 for 2 weeks.

    Get your facts straight.

    But, it turns out that Hangover is a good example to prove my point. The Hangover was only #1 for two weeks, and still it made $277 million.

    Also, Hangover didn’t have to deal with a big time movie like Sherlock Holmes in its first or second weekend.

    Also, it’s only Saturday night, but it seems that Avatar will win its second weekend in a row anyway…And then its third weekend in a row, since nothing is coming out to knock it out of first. And most likely it will win four weekends in a row before it finally drops to second when “The Book Of Eli” probably knocks it down.

    But by that time Avatar should be over $350 million.

    Oh, and where is that “80′s cartoon” now? A distant third. Sure, all the kiddies rushed out to see it on opening day, but in the end Avatar will make at least $200 million more than Alvin.

    Do some research next time.

    Comment by Charl — Saturday December 26, 2009 @ 6:22pm PST  Reply to this post

• AVATAR is going to do good business, sure — but great business? That remains to be seen. What a lot of people seem to be missing here is it cost a FORTUNE. It will have to do make a fortune to turn a profit. The jury is still out domestically on how big the movie is going to be.

  Personally I found the movie ridiculous and a big disappointment. It’s all effects, there’s nothing in it to draw you in from a story angle.

  Anyone expecting it to do anywhere NEAR Titanic business is kidding themselves. It’ll be lucky to make half that amount, because once all the kids go over Christmas break, it’s going to slow down. It won’t keep going for weeks on end, because adults aren’t going to go back — at least not in Titanic numbers, because with that movie, people actually cared about the characters in addition to the effects.

  That component is completely missing from AVATAR. Even if you think it’s cool visually, people are laughing the CGI “love scene” off the screen. The movie just doesn’t function on that level.

  Comment by Doc Michaels — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 8:17pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Agreed. The novelty of 3D mocap, the $400M price tag, and Cameron’s name (the guy makes solid films) brought me in to see what the fuss was all about. I’m thinking only diehard geeks are going back to this thing because the story/characters are so forgettable. My teenage sons instantly started picking it apart on the ride home. Bottom line was that it was good, but it could have been so much better.

    I know Avatar has gotten political, just like Titanic did, and some want Cameron to fail. Unlike Titanic which had a truly compelling story/character combo (enhanced by the Gloria Stuart angle), Avatar is straight-ahead action – you could tell that all the character stuff had been hacked out to make time. In spite of that I think Avatar will do well enough to vindicate Cameron, given all the hype.

    Comment by Knute — Saturday December 26, 2009 @ 8:06am PST  Reply to this post

• Hey everyone! Henry has learned how to cut and paste. He’s also learned the word “FAIL” and where the cap-locks is. Yay for Henry!

  Measuring week to week numbers based on performance 12 years ago is kind of useless. Having said that, Avatar will smoke everything. The problem isn’t Avatar no matter what we think. The problem is the raft of lame pretenders sure to follow. Cameron at his worst can still polish the proverbial poo into a diamond. The clowns who follow are going to bankrupt someone.

  Comment by Ted — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 8:22pm PST  Reply to this post

• Alvin 2′s success is only the latest proof that parents will take their kids to watch any sh*t whatsoever so that they don’t have to interact with their overprivileged brats for ninety minutes.

  Comment by Jon — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 8:22pm PST  Reply to this post

• Yeah, $381 million worldwide in 6 days is a tragic flop…

  Comment by Mystic — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 8:26pm PST  Reply to this post

• Avatar is already halfway to being profitable, in just 6 days of business. For a movie that isn’t a sequel or have any real BIG stars (besides the director), that is nothing short of incredible. It will continue to do very well and be one of the top grossing films of the year.

  Anti-Avatar people everywhere are crying themselves to sleep. What’s the interwebz term used in situations like this? Oh yeah, PWNED.

  Comment by Chris — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 9:16pm PST  Reply to this post

• Comparing Titanic to Avatar: Titanic had a huge, “hit song”, by “Celine Dion”, which left a heartfelt, endearing, feeling to the film – Avatar, does not have a hit song. Titanic had one truly, incredible, breath taking, scene where the ship goes vertical, and left an impression – Avatar,(arguably) has no, truly, incredible, breath-taking, scene. This could be due to the high expectations that a CGI, FX, laden film burdens itself with viewers. Titanic also had two really good actors, Leo & Kate, who had star qualities, and an appeal, that people could easily, empathize with the characters. Avatar, had something new – the characters were not human, and therefore made it more difficult to empathize. Avatar needs a hit song, perhaps from Bjork, or some other spaced out artists. Conclusion, is Avatar will do very well, because Cameron is an awesome filmmaker, but not Titanic, well.

  Comment by justathought — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 10:30pm PST  Reply to this post

• Avatar WILL BEAT Transformers 2′s overall box office run. And yes, it WILL ALSO BEAT “Return Of The King” in worldwide box office returns.

  The drop (or lack thereof) from day to day is proof. Yes, kids have off from school…But those same kids had off over the summer months when Transformers 2 was in theaters. Transformers 2 dropped 53.6% ($14.8 million) on its first Monday (Avatar only dropped 33.8% – $16.3 million). On the comparable Tuesdays, Transformers 2 dropped 9% ($13.5 million) and Avatar 1.8% ($16 million). On the Wednesday, Transformers 2 dropped 19% ($10.9 million) and Avatar actually went up 2.2% ($16.4 million). Do you see the trend here? Avatar has word of mouth going for it. It has made between $16 million and $16.5 million every day this week!

  Further evidence will be coming this weekend when Avatar drops less than 30% from its opening weekend (whereas Transformers 2 dropped 61.2%). After both movies’ first weekend, Avatar was trailing Transformers 2 by $123 million (Avatar had $77 million and Transformers 2 had $200 million including the 2 day head start before its opening weekend). After both pictures’ 2nd weekend Avatar will trail by about $100 million ($293 million to Avatar’s $190-$193 million). After the 3rd weekend, Avatar will trail with about $60-$70 million. Yes, Avatar will have around $270 million by the end of its third weekend.

  After the 3rd weekend, Avatar will continue its strong word of mouth and drop little from weekend to weekend (It’s biggest percentage drop will be the fourth weekend – the first weekend after the New Year’s weekend – Then it will hold steady with 30%-40% drop weekend to weekend).

  My current projection today, December 24, is that Avatar will make at least $410 million before its theater run is over. If word of mouth and repeat business is even better than I suspect, then it will make more.

  So, after that long explanation, you now realize the first part of my statement is correct – Avatar will gross more than Transformers 2…Go ahead, I know people are going to pick me apart, but you will find it to be true.

  The 2nd part of my opening statement has a much easier explanation.

  !!!!!!!!!!!!IT DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Big action spectacles always do better overseas, usually making twice as much as it does domestically (or in 2012′s case, 3.5 times more). Yes, I know, Return Of The King made twice the amount it made domestically, but that brings me to my second reason Avatar will outgross Return Of The King worldwide:
  !!!SPOILER!!! Foreign audiences that don’t like America, and especially its military, will love the “bad American soldiers” getting defeated. Then again, those same foreign audiences that don’t like America still give us money by seeing our American-made movies like Avatar. It’s kinda like Avatar’s hypocritical anti-war message with a relentless balls-to-the-wall “shock and awe” final 45 minutes. And while I’m on the subject, why were the bad earthlings Americans? Does that mean in the future the Americans are still Kings Of The World? Why couldn’t some of the bad guys be British or German or Spanish or Russian or African…Oh wait, no, in Avatar the good guys are blue Africans according to some people that are critical of the movie…Or are they blue Native Americans? I forget…Some mumbo-jumbo about James Cameron being racist. The bottom line is that foreign audiences will like seeing the mighty Americans being defeated by outnumbered and outgunned natives with bows and arrows.
  !!!END OF SPOILER!!!

  I’m predicting that in the end, the foreign gross of Avatar will make up about 68%-69% of the overall global gross. Which means that the Worldwide Gross will be around $1.25-$1.3 billion.

  Yes, once all is said and done, Titanic will still be the top grossing movie worldwide at $1.8 billion and Avatar will be second. I guess that would make James Cameron “King And Queen Of The World”…

  Comment by Charl — Thursday December 24, 2009 @ 11:14pm PST  Reply to this post

• Stunning ignorance of box office being displayed here. “Bad day for Cameron”? “800 million no way”? Hilarious. Avatar made $381.6 million in six days, well on its way to at least $575 million in its first 10 days. The Dark Knight made $60 million less over the same time span. And Avatar is showing far better legs, thus it will easily beat The Dark Knight and pass Return of the King as well. Sorry, Avatar/Cameron haters, you are the ones who’ve failed.

  Comment by faraci — Friday December 25, 2009 @ 12:08am PST  Reply to this post