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The official numbers are in. So Twentieth Century Fox reports that AVATAR has earned $1.859 billion in worldwide revenue in just 39 days. It took place on Monday when James Cameron’s big budget 3D technopic passed the long-standing worldwide revenue record held by his other epic film Titanic of $1.843 billion set in 1998. No one thought that record could be broken, but Avatar‘s higher 3D ticket prices not adjusted for inflation did it. And News Corp insiders think Avatar‘s worldwide revenue will reach $2 billion — especially with after next week’s Oscar nominations and the March 7 Acadamy Awards — and add $400 million to News Corp’s bottom line. The North American figure for Avatar now stands at $555 million and should surpass Titanic’s record $600.8 million either through next weekend or next midweek, according to Hollywood.com:
TOP 2 WORLDWIDE GROSSING FILMS THROUGH 01/25/10
1. AVATAR (Fox) $1,859 billion
2. TITANIC (Fox/Paramount) $1.843 billion
AVATAR through January 25th, 2010
DOMESTIC GROSS (U.S. and Canada): $554,981,691
INTERNATIONAL GROSS: $1,303,885,198
WORLDWIDE GROSS: $1,858,866,889
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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inflation?
Unreal… so is the question now can he do it for a third time?!
what if they subtract the surcharge for the 3D glasses? Where does it chart then?
CONGRATS!!!
I don’t get it. What a crappy movie.
Can someone please explain what it is that James Cameron is doing.. that everyone else fails to do? Everyone is talking about 3D and low competition.. but if that was the cure.. then there would be 20 more movies up there at $2 billion right now.
Avatar wont be there for long, Titanic will regain #1 when it is re-released for the 100th year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic (which happened in April 1912). Heard it might be “converted” to 3D by then too!
I don’t know why I wanted this to happen so bad. Probably because I knew it would happen. James Cameron is a fu*king boss. I can’t wait to read all the hate comments that follow this.
No matter what you say, AVATAR was a colossal success and it’s not done yet.
Now lets see if Jim can fill the stop three.
Titanics $1.843 Billion in 1998 = $2.450 Billion in 2010 dollars!
Avatar still has a long way to go!
Nice try
Before it’s done–
1) unadjusted gross: over $1 billion domestic, $3 billion worldwide
2) adjusted for real inflation (correct measure): will blow away GWtW
3) adjusted for ticket inflation (wrong measure): top 3
If I’m reading things right, the ‘adjusted for ticket inflation’ rate is roughly double the ‘adjusted for real inflation’ rate. Is this correct? If so, Avatar will crush GWtW in the category that really matters.
‘Whiskey’ will still spin it as a financial failure. To all the naysayers on this forum from back in December, I hope you have the class to admit you were all wrong.
As for you ‘adjusted for inflation’ folks, until business people start talking about Exxon and GM and GE and Apple and just about every product I can think of, in terms of adjusted dollars, forgive me if I don’t give a crap.
I have some questions regarding Alice in Wonderland kicking Avatar off of screens.
1) How many theaters are required to replace Avatar with AiW?
2) Are these theaters required to show AiW a certain # of weeks?
3) Can these theaters put Avatar back on after fulfilling their obligation to show AiW?
How long until the next ‘Avatar-style’ 3D film hits theaters? I would think that a bunch of theaters will continue to show Avatar (even if temporarily bumped on occasion due to contractual obligations) as long as it remains the only such movie available.
Am I the only one who thinks that Avatar will be the best-selling DVD of all time?
When TV’s hit the market that can display Avatar’s 3D format, Avatar will be one of the very very few movies available for that format. Practically everyone will eventually own Avatar, almost to the extent that everyone with a Nintendo owned Super Mario Brothers (or Zelda for the Sega folks).
Alvin and the Chipmunks The Squeakquel gross was more than double Avatar (2.268257975 times to be more precise) at the theater where I work.
What?
No snide anti-Cameron comments?
Where are all the whiny “Smurf” comments?
Where are all of the doomsayers who panned the movie even before it was released?
Idiots…
Lame forecast by News Corp’s insider.
The movie is crossing 2 Billion by Monday. its just 142 Mil short. it made 19 Mil WW today (Dom 3, Overseas 16 ).
All it has to do is make 100 Mil (Dom + overseas) in the weekend. Thats a no-BRAINER!!
I would not be surprised if it crosses 2.1 B next week.
And this movie will make more than 2.5 B because its overseas drop from from last monday to this monday is freaking -1%.
Adjusted for inflation, TITANIC was never the all-time #1 grosser, a number of films from the 1930s and 40s pulled in more revenue.
AVATAR isn’t half the film TITANIC is.
Uh, it’s easily half the film “Titanic” is.
“Titanic” isn’t half the film “A Night To Remember” is.
There are more factors than inflation that have affected box office records.
Gone With the Wind was released before tv or vhs or dvd, you had to see it
on the big screen or miss it. Now many people (my parents) will wait for the dvd.
Ten Commandments, Snow White, The Graduate, 101 Dalmatians, The Exorcist,
Doctor Zhivago, Ben Hur, The Sting, Fantasia, The Godfather, and Mary Poppins are all ahead of Avatar in domestic adjusted for inflation numbers
and the all were released before the advent of vhs and dvd.
Also when the studios owned the theatres they could more easily help films
controlling the rolling out of a movie. Now it seems there’s another blockbuster every couple of weeks, with huge marketing budgets.
Just saying there is more to the box office numbers that time value of money. Then again I’m a sophomore at the University of Toronto so what do
I know. I’m a film buff but i can only read so much Hollywood history at this point in my life. Maybe someone with a history in the business can
correct me or fill in more details.
Anyway, Avatar was good, as was Inglorious Basterds and District 9, but
the best thing last year was the 7 part review of The Phanton Menace on
Youtube. Watch that!!
“the best thing last year was the 7 part review of The Phanton Menace on Youtube. Watch that!!”
Agreed. That was epic.
that’s sick!
Wow! $400 million profit for Fox and counting…they may make triple Avatar’s production costs after home video sales are factored in…James Cameron does it again!
Geez, that sure is a lot of money.
Too bad it will never be profitable, right whiskey?
Nothing to add but Congratulations James! It couldn’t have happened to a bigger Ahole!
It’s still too early to say whether the 3D ticket prices will be a decisive factor in surpassing Titanic’s gross. By the same 39th day of their release, domestically, Titanic was only at $276 million while Avatar is now at $554 million. If you adjust Titanic for real inflation and subtract 15% from Avatar to compensate for the 3D surcharge, Avatar is still ahead at this point in time by over $100 million (Titanic’s adjusted $369 million to Avatar’s 3D-handicapped $471 million).
On the all-time worldwide adjusted list that ibrarules calculated on the IMDB forums, Titanic adjusts to $2.5 billion worldwide (a total 2nd only to Gone with the Wind at $3.4 billion). That is now the exact amount some are predicting Avatar to end up with.
Of course, if you insist on adjusting Avatar down for the 3D surcharge, which is arguably neither fair, meaningful or desirable, Avatar would need to gross 3 billion worldwide to “tie” Titanic. It’s not totally out of the realm of possibility with the way everyone has had to constantly raise their final gross predictions with each passing week that Avatar outperforms expectations.
But, keep in mind that the 3D surcharge makes it HARDER for people to afford to see Avatar, and every movie competing with Avatar at the same time is cheaper for the consumer to see. Those are two handicaps Titanic did NOT suffer from. That’s why adjusting down for the 3D surcharge makes no sense. If people are willing to pay more to see Avatar, that money should count towards the total. In order to tell how high demand was for a movie, you HAVE to include what people pay for it. Otherwise your figures are skewed away from the movie’s real economic performance.
For people interested in seeing ibrarules top 50 all-time worldwide adjusted box office list, you have to find the post titled “The ‘REAL’ Movie Gross List (TOP 50)” on the Avatar IMDB forums. The easiest way is to search on ibrarules account posting history. Google doesn’t seem to be able to retrieve IMDB posts.
Eric I could not have said it better. Nikkis 3D surchage theory makes no sense.
“But, keep in mind that the 3D surcharge makes it HARDER for people to afford to see Avatar”
I disagree. If a person can afford $10 to see AVATAR they can shell out another $4 to see it. At what point do you establish that 3-D is too expensive and is becoming a detriment to a person going? Ticket prices at night are high already. Another few bucks won’t make a difference to the people who will go anyway.
No question the 3-D surcharge in addition to inflation is the reason the movie “has reached #1″ so quickly. It’s why it’s a hollow mark.
Obviously the film is making loads and loads of money. But claiming it’s #1 already — big deal. It hasn’t sold a fraction of the amount of tickets of past blockbusters, and that’s the real mark of how many people have gone or will go.