As some of you already know, Avatar has won for Best Director and Best Motion Picture – Drama at the Golden Globes. The movie, though being absolutely visually stunning (I saw it in IMAX), is not exactly very original.
Even with China pulling the movie from most of its regular screens, nothing is stopping it from making more money then almost any other film before it. It could be in it’s ticket prices (being around $16 bucks for IMAX vs $11 for regular movies – in Canada) but given that many people no longer go the movies and instead download them, making close to $1.7 Billion is outer-worldly.
There are two movies ahead of Avatar in domestic sales, one of which is a little movie called The Dark Knight, the other is the same movie that is also ahead internationally. This other little film is the only film that magical director James Cameron has made in the last 5 years, its called Titanic.
Here is a little chart of what is going on domestically:
Mathematical concepts aside, you can see Avatar is on a rocket fulled trajectory to the top spot. Although Cameron is indeed some sort of movie marketing genius, the amount of money being made here is a testament of what advanced technologically can do to bring people back into the theaters – you just can’t have an IMAX 3-D experience out of your laptop!
By next week Avatar will be the second highest domestic grosser of all time and less than $100 million away from top international spot of all time.
Edit: Avatar’s international gross is now highest of all time. In another week Avatar will take top spot from Titanic as the highest grossing movie of all time. This will probably the word’s first 2 billion dollar movie.
Mind Gears 