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SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM: Now that 20th Century Fox’s Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation or higher 3D ticket prices), it passed the $2 billion mark in worldwide grosses and remained No. 1 at the weekend box office for the 7th straight week. Today, after just 45 days of release, James Cameron’s sci-fi epic reached $2.039 billion. The pic’s runaway success has answered all its critics, so there’s not much more to say except, Wow! It made $7.5M Friday from 3,074 plays and $14M Saturday for another $30M weekend — an amazing -14% hold despite a declining theater count. That’s a new $594.2M domestic cume. The pic should pass Titanic‘s record of $600.8M this week.
Here’s the run-down of IMAX’s 5th weekend of Avatar. The giant screen juggernaut generated another $6.0 mil domestically this weekend (-10%) on 179 screens; this represents approx 21% of the pictures overall domestic take. Hollywood.com reports IMAX’s domestic cume for Avatar stands at $97M and will pass $100M this week. Overseas, IMAX generated $4.3M (-3%) on 83 screens. As of Sunday night, the IMAX international cume will be $56M. This puts the global total as of tonight at $153M. The only remaining questions are: Will Avatar make it 8 weeks in a row as #1? And will it win the Best Picture Oscar? Stay tuned.
Way more questions surrounded the Warner Bros-distributed Edge Of Darkness starring Mel Gibson in his big screen comeback in front of the camera after an 8-year hiatus. All week Industry chatter focused on whether the director, unquestionably brilliant behind the camera, can regain the star status he enjoyed before that July 2006 drunken anti-semitic rant damaged his public image. But how this new pic performs may relate more to Mel’s present day status as an aging action star whose appeal now lies mainly with older males. Produced and financed by GK Films, the Martin Campbell-directed Edge Of Darkness on Friday debuted exactly as Warner Bros expected. It received a “B+” CinemaScore and opened to $5.6 million Friday and $7.4M Saturday (+30% – maybe Mel fans who spent Friday night at Shabbos dinner were first in line Saturday) from a wide release of 3,066 theaters. That’s a $17.5M weekend. “We outperformed every vendor who projects via tracking,” the WB exec said. But was that lowered expectation good enough? Well, a younger and scandal-less Gibson opened the R-rated crime story Payback to $21M back in 1999.
Ugh, is all I can say about all those nauseating ads run by Disney for When In Rome. Under the guise of romantic comedy, it’s yet more treacly trash — this time starring former TV stars Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel. The pic debuted to $4.4 million Friday and $5.1M Saturday (+18%) from 2,456 dates to end the weekend with $12M.
Lastly, I’ve received puzzled queries why CBS Films all week didn’t release numbers for its first flop Extraordinary Measures which Friday eked out only an embarrassing $715K (-64%) and Saturday $1.1M (-58%) from 2,549 runs. There’s this weird tradition in Hollywood that independents don’t release daily box office figures and just report weekend and weekly totals. ”Supposedly, it goes back to the days when box office was manually gathered so it was only done twice a week,” one distribution expert tells me. “But now that there are electronic means for gathering the data, this practice is silly.” Especially for a division of a Big Media company.
Here’s the Top Ten based on Friday’s and Saturday’s numbers (to be refined):
1. AVATAR (Fox) Week 7 [3,074]
Friday $7.5M, Saturday $14M, Weekend $30M, Est Cume $594.4M
2. EDGE OF DARKNESS (GK/Warner Bros) NEW [3,066]
Friday $5.6M, Saturday $7.4M, Weekend $17.5M
3. WHEN IN ROME (Disney) NEW [2,456]
Friday $4.4M, Saturday $5.1M, Weekend $12M.
4. TOOTH FAIRY (Fox) Week 2 [3,345]
Friday $2.2M (-37%), Saturday $4.7M, Weekend $10M, Est Cume $26.1M
5. BOOK OF ELI (Warner Bros) Week 3 [3,075]
Friday $2.3M, Saturday $3.7M, Weekend $8.0M, Est Cume $73.6M
6. LEGION (Sony) Week 2 [2,476]
Friday $2.0M (-70%), Saturday $2.9M, Weekend $6.6M, Est Cume $28.4M
7. LOVELY BONES (Paramount) Week 8 [2,638]
Friday $1.3M, Saturday $2.0M, Weekend $4.4M, Est Cume $37.7M
8. SHERLOCK HOLMES (Warner Bros) Week 6 [2,250]
Friday $1.1M, Saturday $1.9M, Weekend $4.0M, Est Cume $197.1M
9. ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEALQUEL (Fox) Week 6 [2,526]
Friday $815K, Saturday $1.9M, Weekend $4M, Est Cume $209.2M
10. IT’S COMPLICATED (Universal) Week 6 [2,096]
Friday $950K, Saturday $1.7M, Weekend $3.5M, Est Cume $103.8M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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This means Avatar has spent SEVEN weekends at the top of the heap, and is virtually guaranteed to get the eighth next week. That puts it in the top 10 all-time movies for most consecutive weeks at #1 since 1982, according to Box Office Mojo. No “asterisks” on this success.
Meanwhile, if you adjust WORLDWIDE grosses by REAL inflation, Avatar now ranks FIFTH place in history (according to the excerpt from the below list put together by ibrarules on IMDB’s Avatar forums). And if projections are true that Avatar will hit $2.5 billion, it WILL outgross Titanic’s ADJUSTED total. If you insist on deducting what the 3D surcharge segment of Avatar’s gross roughly amounts to, it would remain in the top ten here, at about 9th on the all-time worldwide adjusted list currently. And if it hits that $2.5 billion mark, and you deduct for the 3D surcharge, Avatar would still rank third in adjusted worldwide gross JUST ABOVE STAR WARS. So this movie’s success remains huge, massive, rare and epic. The only asterisk should be to point out how uncommonly remarkable this success is.
All-time worldwide grosses adjusted for real inflation:
1. $3,429,000,000 Gone With the Wind
2. $2,476,600,000 Titanic
3. $2,108,000,000 Star Wars
4. $1,953,400,000 The Sound of Music (** no re-releases info)
5. $1,924,419,460 Avatar
6. $1,880,700,000 Jaws (** no re-releases info)
7. $1,683,000,000 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
8. $1,669,000,000 The Exorcist
9. $1,430,000,000 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (* incl. foreign estimate)
10. $1,368,400,000 Jurassic Park
These WW adjusted figures are a joke. You can’t adjust overseas gross using US inflation. Inflation is different in every country plus this does not take into account exchange rate movements.
Err The Source you are simply wrong.
Yes inflation differs and yes exchange rates fluctuate but that has no impact on this type of inflationg based list.
The Grosses are collected in local currency and then converted to US Dollars at the time of release. Since the monies are then in dollars, only changes in value of the dollar matters. It’s that simple. A Bollywood movie would only be inflated in Indian currency, etc.
Who cares? The studio takes the revenues to the US immediately.
I think the adjusted gross for GWTW is closer to six billion domestic. The multiplier is roughly thirty, times two hundred million.
The following are rough figures from current research. Still needs to be refined.
1st Release: DEC1939 (USD23million in first 12 months)
2nd Release: JAN1941 (USD7million during 2nd release)
(Article says USD30million gross and 52million people have seen GWTW before MAR1942 at 12500 engagements)
52million tickets * $7.46=$388million
3rd Release: MAR1942
$7m/$0.29=24million tickets*$7.46=$179million
4th Release: OCT1947
$5m/$0.37=13.5million tickets*$7.46=$101million
5th Release: JUN1954
$3m/$0.47=6.4million tickets*$7.46=$48million
(Article about De Mille death in JAN1959 indicates that up to that date GWTW had grossed under USD41.8million. Subtracting from USD30m suggests about USD10-12million during 3rd, 4th and 5th releases FOR THIS CALCULATION I HAVE DIVIDED $15M ACROSS THE 3RD,4TH&5TH RELEASES)
6th Release: APR1961 (could not find any info)
$5M/$0.74=6.7million tickets*$7.46=$50million(the $5m here is a guess)
7th Release: OCT1967-FEB1968: USD15million in 82 theaters
$15m/$1.21=12.4million tickets*$7.46=$92million
8th Release: SEP1974: USD15million(this is a guess)
$15m/$1.87=8million tickets*$7.46=$60million
9th Release: FEB1989-$2.4m
$2.4m/$3.97=0.6million tickets*$7.46=$4.5million
10th Release: JUN1998-$6.75m
$6,75/$4.69=1.4million tickets*$7.46=$11million
I have tried to use conservative estimates. I suspect that the total for some of these releases are less than my guess. What do you think?
TOTAL ADMISSIONS – 125 MILLION PEOPLE
ADJUSTED GROSS TO 2009 TICKET PRICES – $933,500,000
I think these are maximum amounts.
For more details-
http://boxofficemojo.com/forums/viewtopic.htm?t=82668&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
I stand corrected. Using the contemporaneous New York Times figure of first release numbers, GWTW had 52 million admissions or approximately forty percent of the population at the time. That factors out to 120 million admissions now or approximately a billion dollars of domestic box office. That seems the fairest and most accurate way to address the issue of comparative box office. I think the New York Times figures are the only reliable statistics therefore a reasonable basis for comparison.
kick back Sheldon, go back to solving string theory
And the gross for The Sound of Music would be $900 million domestic on today’s dollars.
I’m too lazy to look up the imdb post you refer to … but since the box office numbers for each re-release of Gone with the Wind are not available (at least I’ve never seen them broken out), if someone is using 1939 dollars in order to adjust for inflation for the entire amount made over all the film’s releases, then 3.4 billion isn’t going to be accurate – it will be a lower number.
According to the book Blockbusting the numbers look like this:
1939 – $21.5m
1941 – $10.2m
1942 – $4.2m
1947 – $8.2m
1954 – $14.2m
1961 – $12.9m
1967 – $80.7m
1974 – $15.7m
1989 – $2.4m
1998 – $6.8m
No, ibrarules used the different rerelease figures for GWTW. However he put asterisks on Sound of Music and Jaws because he does not have rerelease info for them, therefore they are probably adjusted too high on this list. Here is a link to his original post with the full top 50 and all his rationale:
The ‘REAL’ Movie Gross List (TOP 50)
Kudos. Excellent observations! And that is one awesome top 10. It only goes to show that some movies do last the test of time. True, it remains to seen how long Avatar will last (in those terms), but James Cameron is a master filmmaker and it’s not an easy task to captivate virtually the entire world.
Actually the asteriks for this list should be reserved for Gone with the Wind – which was re-released like 6 times from the initial release, and Star Wars – which also had a re-release in the 90′s to precede the prequels.
Funny how this never comes up whenever Nikki does her “not adjusted for inflation or 3D ticket prices” spiel for Avatar every week.
If anyone wants to adjust Avatar’s grosses to eliminate 3D ticket prices, then maybe they should also adjust both GWTW and Star Wars to reflect only the 1st release since that’s what’s being compared to Avatar as a first release.
Either that or wait until Avatar is re-released again 4 or 5 more times in the next 50 years and then adjust that total amount for inflation and see where it ranks next to everything else.
Eight times, GWTW was reissued, actually. With enough asterisks, you can make a case for Plan 9 from Outer Space as the biggest moneymaker of something or other. Time to appreciate Avatar for the global phenomenon that it is, even if Cameron will lose tonight’s DGA award to Bigelow. What a crock of shit that is.
That’s an interesting list, thanks for sharing it with us. I agree that Avatar’s success at this point is unquestionable.
My only question is: what assumptions did you use for calculating worldwide inflation? I’m curious because I’ve only seen domestic figures adjusted this way in the past.
I know that it’s common to use a 3% annual rate of inflation for the United States, but what sort of rate would you use to calculate worldwide inflation? It seems very complex, given that every country has a unique rate of inflation/deflation.
I’m guessing that this approach converted all the box office earnings for these movies into USD at the first year of release, and then applied standard US inflation rates. However, if we kept all earnings in their original currencies and adjust them for their individual local inflation, you might get very different results!
Just something to think about. I think doing this the second way might be more precise, but it would take forever!
The ‘asterisks’ are important so people can get a real sense of the film’s performance, not just the inflated sense its core fans insist on. The more accurate the numbers the better, though by any standard Cameron is to be congratulated on pulling off an amazing feat.
When Gone with the wind was released and re-released, forget VHS and DVD, even a color TV was non-existent.
And means of entertainment itself were limited. No billion TV shows, no wii, no xbox, no watching videos on youtube and hulu…
Using the inflation logic is being a bit unfair to Avatar.
One thing not unfair is the unspoken dirty secret for Avatar that most films calculate their historical box office is at the current “average” rate of around $7.15 a ticket. Everyone who paid $7.15 to see Avatar raise your hand.
I paid $7 to see it.
I’m not big on adjusting for “entertainment options.” The entertainment landscape was different at different times, but I think people show an unfair bias when they act like people 50-75 years ago were sitting around bored out of their minds with nothing to do because they didn’t have video games, the internet, etc. They in fact made use of a lot of entertainment options people DON’T today. For example, comic books were EXTREMELY popular back then. Radio was also huge, with radio dramas commonly available as a replacement for movies. Remember that famous Orson Welles War of the Worlds one for instance? That stuff may look boring to you now, but each new technological advancement or innovation seems extremely exciting as it comes out to the people of that time. And the entertainment we’re looking at now, in 50 years those people will think it’s dull as dirt and act like we had nothing better to do than go to 3D movies too. Not to mention there may have been more of a sense of community back then and more social activities going on, which may have even been more appealing than texting and social networking on the internet.
Maybe GWTW should have the * because it was released before the days of TV & DVD & DVR & the Web, so repeat viewings were solely the result of repeat theater admissions.
The Gone With The Wind numbers have been thoroughly debunked by the good folks at the BoxOfficeMojo forums: http://boxofficemojo.com/forums/viewtopic.htm?t=82668&sid=e949fbc54afdfb3bc9cb65a81e2de0fe.
There are a lot of numbers in that thread. Basically, GWTW’s inflated number is the result of multiple releases over many decades, extremely high ticket prices for its time, and unaccounted totals.
If Avatar hits $2.5 billion, it will be the number 1 movie EVER, adjusted for inflation or not.
And using some free previews of NY Times articles to make some claim that BOM users have thoroughly debunked GWTW’s ticket sales is very foolish as well. You can’t even read the full article. They are only free previews. The guy who posted this info wasn’t even will to cough up the dough to get the full versions of these articles. If he thought he had an airtight case, he’d probably cough up the dough.
Gibson is back. Awesome!
um lets see um avatar isnt guaranteed that 8th weekend yet edge of darkness is close only 800,000 separate and remember these are just estimates so dont jump gun here.
Are you kidding me? Have you been watching Avatar’s Saturday numbers the past 6 weeks? They have been ridiculously good. No way in hell the Nazi beats Avatar this weekend.
Gone With The Wind alltime adjusted figure for US Domestic is wrong. It should be under $1 billion US dollars. The following is an extract from The New York Times-
‘GONE WITH WIND’ BACK; Film Will Return to Broadway for Third Time on March 31
March 17, 1942, Tuesday
Section: AMUSEMENTS, Page 25, 162 words
“Gone With the Wind” will return to Broadway for a third time on March 31, when the David O. Selznick production will open a continuous-run popular-price engagement at the Astor Theatre. The film, which already has grossed $30,000,000, the biggest business ever to be recorded by any picture, has played to more than 52,000,000 paid admissions in more than 12,500 engagements, according to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the distributors.
In its first 2 years GWTW had an adjustedd gross of 52 million tickets*$7.46(2009 ticket price)=$388million dollars. Avatar has already sold more tickets than this in 42 days.
Other evidence suggests total admissions under 120 million in total. Check yourself in NY Times and GoogleNews archives.
At a rough measure, $30m in 1942 has a buying power around $400m nowadays.
Now, we know it had a total of about $190m when it was re-released in 1989, so it earned about $160m starting with the 1942 re-release. When did the bulk of that business come by? 1950? 1960? Let’s shoot way under the mark and assume it earned all of that money in 1980. That’s about another $410m, and I think we can assume that it’s a very low assumption. Even so, adjusted for true inflation, GWTW has earned at least $800m, which is probably out of reach for Avatar.
Can’t wait for Whiskey to continue to point out what a complete and utter failure Avatar is.
Ask and ye shall receive.
GROSS != Profits.
How much money out of the gross is going to the studio? It’s hard to say. But you can take a ballpark swag at the COST of AVATAR, which is in the neighborhood of half a billion. You can also bank on the fact that AVATAR is NOT going to be doing these numbers in home video — you can’t watch it at home in 3-D!
AVATAR’s big impact is that a 3-D effects bit can pull in revenue. Cameron’s next picture is a movie about Hiroshima (yeah, that will do well at the box office). Rival studios have not been showering him with offers, in contrast to Bryan Singer, Christopher Nolan, and Jon Favreau when they hit it big.
Cameron and AVATAR are impressive dinosaurs — big, lumbering, monstrosities whose chief weakness is huge production costs. Redbox and Netflix are not going away, and the pressure on studios chief revenue stream — home video, is not going away either.
GM for DECADES was the world’s biggest car company by sales and number of vehicles. Yet at the end they were burning up billions in losses per quarter.
Fox is not keeping even HALF the world-wide grosses, is my guess. And the proof will be in their SEC filings (for News Corp). If AVATAR is broken out as a line item it will have made money. If it’s buried it will still be struggling to make money.
My guess is AVATAR is slightly profitable, when all is said and done, because of its high cost, and lack of home video sales (to the degree of box office) offsetting high gross box office.
I don’t think AVATAR is a failure, more like a lost opportunity: failure to show the studios how to make an extravanganza for less than the cost of an aircraft carrier, and make 3-D stunning and cheap.
I mean, really, how many Studios are going to throw the dice on half a billion to make a 3-D epic? Cameron had an opportunity to change things by making the same film for “only” $200 million, and forgo some of the effects for an actual script, characters, and actors, instead of pricey CGI.
Whiskey… You truly are the biggest and dumbest box office troll I have ever come across. And I’ve been posting in the box office mojo and imdb forums for about half a decade now…
I am convinced that you actually believe in the things that you type…
Your religious blindness rivals most fundamentalist christians/muslims.
But keep posting. Even if Avatar passes 2.5 billion, I am sure you will continue in your idiotic ways and provide others with about half a minute of amusement, before they realise that it’s fanatics like you that are at the root of much of the world’s problems.
Can you please tell us how you know “Rival studios have not been showering him with offers”.
Mel is lucky, if it weren’t for Avatar this would be trumpeted as proof that the public has soured on him. Trailer looks interesting but a little too much in the mold of Taken.
yes,but these were all 2-d movies,still giant success
That’s just crazy talk…
Gone with the Wind’s box office is a fraud. It did not make anywhere near what people are claiming. Note that the popular media sources complicit in the hoax, such as Box Office Mojo, do not come close to fully documenting Gone with the Wind’s many re-releases. You have to go back to old newspaper articles and books to find out the truth, like people are doing here: http://boxofficemojo.com/forums/viewtopic.htm?t=82668&sid=146a1165816f8db8866df42e6e7461a9
Avatar will finish #1 all-time worldwide even after adjusting for inflation.
What a bizarre thread. First off comparing GWTW totals to Avatar totals is really silly for several reasons. It’s really apples to oranges for a lot of reasons.
But some of the GTW detractors are being just as silly as those who adjust for inflation. Films used to be re-released many times because back then theaters got films for much longer periods and they played on fewer screens. The whole distribution method was different and ALL popular films were re-released back then. It was the only way people had a chance to see the film.
Now with thousands of screens all over the country a film like Avatar plays in Botswana the same day it plays in LA. So complaining about GWTW re-releases is just plain stupid.
The fact is Avatar will be the highest grossing picture of all time. It’s the biggest movie out right now. And that’s all that can really be said. And all that really needs to be said.
Birth of a Nation, GWTW, Star Wars, ET, Titanic, Avatar, these are all milestone films with huge popularity for their times. Comparing them as if things were the same is just kind of silly. For one thing we now have more people crawling around on the earth than all the people who have come before us, so personally I don’t think it’s surprising a film out today would have a lot more people watching it.
Not quite right–the number of screens rose as theaters turned to multiplexes in the 80′s but the number of SEATS and thus tickets didn’t, compared to population rise.
Re-relaeases were basically the home video of their day, Disney used to do this brilliantly re-releasing their animated movies again and again, roughly every 7-8 years. How else were you going to see GWTW except in a theater; no TV nor VCR no DVD no Hulu.
…you have to be kidding me you support a movie this much to shill for it. I am still not impressed with a movie where a gimmick trumps substance. I notice you use your own asterisks too, so avatar will always have those to explain its steroids ticket prices/movie gross. I still would love to see FOX have some guts and release what it officially spent to get this movie off of the ground.
lets not forget the re-releases of all the movies avatar passed to get here in their own 3d format. there numbers will go up AGAIN and they achieved their records WITHOUT the 3d steriods to begin with.
its all in flux my man its all in flux. take a screen snapshot NOW while you can.
cheers
This site reports on the *business* side of hollywood– not the critical acclaim of any given film. Regardless of how it has made its profits (be it 3D ticket prices or because it’s a gimmick as you suggest), it’s made a record breaking amount of money. Nikki is no shill for merely reporting this fact. Also, no studio would ever have the guts to report what it officially spends on any movie it releases. If they did, they’d have to actually pay the correct amount of money the creatives involved are entitled to in backend. They all are extremely secretive when it comes to that information.
I WAS NOT SAYING THAT NIKKI WAS SHILLING.
I was commenting/replying to Eric S. for HIS shilling for avatar.
originally i was the 2nd post then somehow was shoved to the bottom or middle of this thread.
back to commenting on Eric S. though:
If avatar fans need to do so much math to like their fave film, then this film is not very good IMHO.
I notice a avatar fan NEVER actually says what the big secret is as to the “incredible acting or suspenseful plot” of avatar. Its all “wow the 3d is awesome” “you gotta luv cameron. ” “YOU JUST gotta LUV CAMERON” “cameron is the blue screen 3d guru” or some such nonsense.
If i have an issue with Nikki, its not her comments about avatar. she is one of the few movie reporters & movie pundits who hasnt lost her common sense about the avatar.
HOWEVER I dont understand how Nikki can say Gibson did so bad, or imply it, when he performed as per studio expectations and a hair below one of his last openers in the late 1990s, as per Nikki’s report, as follows:
“Produced and financed by GK Films, the Martin Campbell-directed Edge Of Darkness on Friday debuted exactly as Warner Bros expected: the studio this morning told me it received a ‘b+’ CinemaScore and opened to $5.6 million Friday from a wide release of 3,066 theaters for what should be an $15M weekend. ‘We outperformed every vendor who projects via tracking,’ the WB exec said. But was that lowered expectation good enough?”
I mean Nikki, the movie is a success according to your own words…why the article headline “‘Edge Of Darkness’ No Bright Spot For Mel”??? he is pretty damn lucky to make this movie as good and profitable as he did considering all of the bad personal actions and bad press he has created & had to deal with since his last acting movie job.
No???
To quote more Nikki:
“Well, a younger and scandal-less Gibson opened the R-rated crime story Payback to $21M back in 1999. ”
….well????
…the 1999 flick is about $6M less then Edge of Darkness and Mel was ALOT more popular back in 1999 and less scandalous. but $21M vs 15M is not like a 50% PR disaster, especially with a B+ movie no less and meeting studio expectations. He has been off screen since 2002, almost 10 yrs.
just saying. you cant have your cake and eat it too.
cheers
I’m not shilling. If I was shilling I’d say we don’t need to adjust grosses and Avatar is already at #1. I’m just giving some perspective because people like Nikki keep saying its breaking records only because the numbers aren’t adjusted for inflation. I pasted some data that shows even if you adjust for inflation and penalize for the 3D surcharge, it remains in the top 10 of all time worldwide and will end up in the top 5 by all indications. I didn’t comment at all on the quality of the movie, I just want to make sure the facts are understood of how successful it is. True enough it might not make the top 10 adjusted grosses going by North America alone because its gross is coming from overseas by greater than 2-to-1. But I prefer to look at worldwide grosses rather than just domestic.
in the CA SF Bay Area matinee tickets are going for $16.50 (IMAX 3D) and $10.00 (regular screen 3D) per ticket.
Don’t know if the gross includes the add’l charge for the 3D glasses or not… and don’t know the non-matinee pricing. Regardless, those ticket prices add up to much higher numbers than what was being charged for Titanic years ago not to mention Gone with the Wind…
i really think we need an industry or 3rd party CPA to confirm if Avatar is actually including ONLY tickets prices. Also we need FOX & Cameron to come clean as to what was spent on making this movie as well as advertising. I notice there is absolutely NO DISCUSSION ON A SEQUEL.
…AND that my friends will be the REAL AVATAR STORY.
cheers
And here I’d predicted for weeks that Edge of Darkness would be the film to unseat Avatar. It couldn’t at least take Friday? These films are getting a break under all the Avatar news: We focus more on Avatar’s amazing hold than the contenders’ questionable performances.
Next weekend is Avatar’s last time as #1. In fact, I think it will fall to #3 the following weekend, then just three weeks until Alice in Wonderland. Better unroll that “Last chance” campaign, Fox…
What is going to beat it next weekend? That unintentionally hilarious looking Travolta film? (it’s about terrorists!!!). I don’t think Avatar will be unseated until the weekend of Feb 12-14 when Percy Jackson and the Wolfman should both be able to outgross the Cameron film.
Nikki, how is When in Rome “lost” ??? It slightly exceeded expectations…And Kristen Bell seems to be a bigger draw when it comes to sole star-power than 2-time-Oscar-nominee Amy Adams who had hits like Enchanted, Julie and Julia and Night at the Museum II recently. I like her, too but if cwe ompare WIR to LY, the former wins.
They were really plugging When in Rome for the past two weeks: Nonstop ads on TV, those hideous full-page IMDb ads (They really need to get rid of those) and MySpace is practically a 24-hour trailer. Maybe it was the really ugly poster that made it look like a band rejected 70′s sex romp, or that it was too similar to the also-unappealing Leap Year, or that I don’t even know who Kristen Bell is… oh yeah, the girl from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you know, the one you were supposed to think is a bland stick figure compared to the exotic Mila Kunis? Petermiller what the hell are you talking about, you just shot yourself in the foot talking about Amy Adams’ long line of hits. So what if she had one misfire in the hit-and-miss rom-com genre? Maybe it was Matthew “I want to be a women’s sex idol but I’m really a gay man’s sex idol” Goode? Oh yeah, she was in Spartan. I kind-of remember that movie being good, but too bad no one else saw it.
Normally we’d figure you’re one of Kristen’s reps, but you’d have to be more savvy than to post such a stupid comment. Maybe you’re Kriseten herself, or her mom. Please don’t ever bring up Kristen Bell and Amy Adams in the same sentence again.
Considering the pounding it’s taken from critics, When in Rome’s looking pretty good, and it will outdo Leap Year, with the 2-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams. And I’m only a fan of Kristen Bell. Oh yeah, I went there; mentioning both their names in the same post.
I’m cooking up a commentary on why WIR is getting unnecessarily pilloried, which hopefully when it’s done will present a different opinion to what’s been offered of late.
Slightly exceeded expectations? That is only based on expectations that were lowered by $15+ million dollars after tracking came in.
No one is going to compare Leap Year to When in Rome. Leap Year came out at the beginning of the month when the holiday releases were still fresh. It also did not spend an insane amount of money on advertising like When in Rome. Josh Duhamel is featured as prominently in the ads as Kristin Bell to boot. There are really no other recognizable actors in Leap Year except for Amy Adams (unless you count John Lithgow).
No one is going to compare Leap Year to When in Rome. Leap Year was released at the beginning of January when the Holiday releases were still fresh. It also did not spend the insane amount of money on advertising that When in Rome did. Finally, all the ads featured Josh Duhamel as prominently as Kristin Bell. Leap Year does not have any other recognizable stars except Amy Adams (unless you count John Lithgow).
And next up for CBS films – a Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy, that scored so low they moved the release date twice. Hoping to get the JLO from Monster In Law, or Maid In Manhattan, The Back Up Plan will do numbers closer to El Cantante! It scored low 60′s in the top two boxes, (and Todd Black, you’ve got to stop just blaming it on jLO. We hear that you’re running around CBS films saying you should have used someone else. Nice throwing your new bff under the bus). Still, rumors are buzzing that if this bird becomes another turkey, it’s bye bye Amy Baer. Always thought Amy was an odd choice for Les. She’s not strong in any one area, and is much better as the back up girl than the one making the calls. She knows very little about romantic comedy, has passed on some very good material and greenlit material that wouldn’t air on LIFETIME. I mean, come ON, Extraordinary Measures. Les, there are better people out there. Get one.
I do agree with everyone that GWTW’s numbers should checked out. It will still remain among the biggest movies ever, but the numbers are all over the place. We need real hard facts.
These comparisons don’t make much sense one way or another. When GWTW was released, there was no TV, no home entertainment market, no games industry, there was not much of anything entertainment wise that could be counted as any sort of competition. Count in the fact that films had much longer runs back then anyway, there’s really no point comparing the success of AVATAR with that of GWTW – other than saying that AVATAR is the GWTW of our times, warts and all.
Don’t adjust those 3-D ticket prices too far down. I saw Avatar in 3-D at the regular Tuesday afternoon matinee price. No surcharge for me!
I’d be shocked if either “Dear John” or “From Paris with Love” outgrossed “Avatar” next weekend, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it drop to fourth place behind “Percy Jackson,” “Valentine’s Day” and “The Wolfman” on the Feb. 12-14 weekend.
Adjusting BO numbers to inflation of very old, or relatively old movies and then comparing with the new releases it’s just silly. No movie will be able to come close to GWTW any time soon. We live in internet, home theater era, when piratery is on full swing.
I dont think GWTW movie would make the same amount of money if it was to be released in the same time with Avatar, or Titanic for that matter.
[b]It’s fantastic! James Cameron his magnificent artwork continues to shine brilliantly at the box office! Avatar is a -once in a lifetime movie- an unforgettable experience to watch. A great spiritual message, a towering concept, and just sheer beauty. James Cameron understands what the purpose of art is. To lift the human spirit, the human soul. Art is to create beauty. And this is what Avatar is. Beauty.
I am confident the best movie of all time will continue it’s victory both in the US and abroad! Good luck and congrats to James Cameron and the entire Avatar crew! Anthonie/Netherlands[/b]
As someone who has taught statistical analysis at the University of California, all I can say is NO ONE can really compare apples to oranges. For example, those who say some sort of 3D adjustment needs to be made don’t seem to bring up the point that surcharges make for less seats sold. Who knows whether the surcharge gives you maximum income. If you pay less, you generally buy more……
This “inflation adjusted” argument is just a blunt toy people are trying to use to make sense of it all. It doesn’t work and (probably) never will, but go ahead and have fun with it. A better approach (which still isn’t very good) would be to look at disposable income.
Finally (this isn’t a complete list by any means), and something I have heard from people, Gone with the Wind did not have the sort of competition (television, DVD, Xbox…ask my kid about this one, etc.) newer releases have. There are, of course, reasons Avatar, Titanic, etc. would tend to make more money (access to credit cards being just one of them).
The bottom line??? Knock yourself out trying to figure out which is #1 (whatever that means). You might just as well “Hey, this is what I think just because it’s what I think”. You’ll be just about as accurate as anyone else.
Which is why I suggested counting tickets sold (and DVDs sold, etc) as a better comparison for films and figuring which one is #1…
Just like the bowl games, we’ll argue forever about who is truly #1.
Oh….and for those people who are pointing out the weak competition Avatar has had, you should take a look at what Titanic was up against. I’m sure you remember that box office wonder “Spice World” which topped everything else in January 98 at a staggering 29M (total) and the legendary “The Wedding Singer” which was tops in February. This box office extravaganza had an even more impressive run of 80M during it’s release…..
We do sarcasm at the University….
Am I the only one that is annoyed and insulted by this new trend in advertising? The “From The Studio That Brought You..” taglines on posters and previews these days.
So if the “Friday the 13th” rights revert back to Paramount they can proclaim on their posters and ads “From the studio that brought you “The Godfather”, “Raiders Of The Lost Ark”, and “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” above an image of Jason’s ghoulish bloody mask.
Welcome to 2010.
no, you are not alone on that. It’s very annoying and insulting as well. It shows a complete lack of respect for the creative people who are actually generating the material.
Welcome back Mel. This guy is so embedded in the collective unconscious as both hero and anti-hero over the last 30 years that to deny him is to deny one’s shadow self. Sorry for the overstatement.
And who amongst us has not ever expressed outrageous bigotry or threatened absurd violence against another race or nation?
Mel is the shadow. You cast him out and you repress your own reality in a way.