He did it. James Cameron has beaten . . . himself.
On Monday, Jan. 25, 2010, Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all-time worldwide. The film surpassed the total, unadjusted box office of his last film, 1997’s Titanic, and its $1.843 billion tally, and it did so in only 39 days. The stunning part is that the run will certainly not end there: Avatar is locked to become the first film to ever gross $2 billion worldwide and it looks like it could take in an additional $300-$400 million from there before all is said and done.
Here in North America, the ship hasn’t quite sunk yet, but it’s been a foregone conclusion for a few weeks now. Through Wednesday, Jan. 27, it had made $561.3 million domestically, surpassing films like Shrek 2 ($441 million), the original Star Wars ($461 million), and The Dark Knight ($533 million) to claim the No. 2 spot of all time in just 37 days. It has also broken the record for the biggest third, fourth, fifth and sixth weekends, and it looks to get at least one or two more as of this writing. Until Avatar, the only film since Titanic to claim No. 1 at the weekend box office for five consecutive weekends was 1999’s The Sixth Sense. This is one record that the film isn’t likely to get anywhere near though: Titanic was No. 1 for 15 consecutive weekends while E.T. holds the record for total No. 1 weekends (16). Avatar will likely lose the top spot after eight weekends come Valentine’s Day weekend.
Where the film will finish up domestically will depend on two very important factors: how it fares at the Oscars and how many theaters it will lose when Tim Burton’s 3D adaptation of Alice In Wonderland hits theaters on March 5, robbing it of most of its limited 3D screens. I’m currently projecting Avatar to break the $600 million barrier and sink Titanic as the No. 1 film of all time domestically on Thursday, Feb. 4…two days after Oscar nominations are announced. From there, it should enjoy a healthy run into the high $600 millions, with a very strong chance at hitting $700 million by early March.
Stay tuned in the next issue for another update, as I’ll analyze more of just how much of a benchmark the film has really set with its box office run.
