Box Office - 'Avatar' Up to $429 Million

Here's what's really interesting about Avatar after four weeks. Look at the fouth Saturdays for James Cameron's film and The Dark Knight: Avatar made $21.2 million while The Dark Knight did about half as much, $10.5 million. It appears almost certain at this point that Avatar will beat Batman, probably in about three to four weeks, because it's about $100 million behind that mark now. It was that big Saturday that did the trick, because Sunday was way off, but there's no phony $429 million; that's some great performance. In fact, it surpassed Transformers as 2009's top movie (and yes, they always carry over those numbers from the new year into the release year). It will pass Star Wars to be the number three film in American history in probably another week. I'd love to see a breakdown of the IMAX numbers at this point to see what the percentage is, but IMAX doesn't typically release weekly numbers, although Wall Street believes Avatar will make around $100 million in that format. That obviously helps these results, and it could be what puts Avatar over the $550 million mark down the line. Does it beat Titanic? It should be close, within $25 million either way. Daybreakers got off to a nice start on Friday, but failed to keep that going throughout, dropping to fourth for the weekend. Supplanting it, as we suggested in yesterday's box office article, was Sherlock Holmes in second place and Alvin and the Chipmunks in third. Dig this: Three films released between December 18th and December 25th will ultimately account for a billion dollars in the US. Avatar is half of that, but Sherlock and The Squeakuel will both earn in the $200 million range. For Fox, Avatar and Alvin will ultimately do around $2 billion globally, maybe more depending on where Avatar finally stops. That's a pretty good week. The other new releases, Leap Year and Youth in Revolt won't be making that kind of money. In fact, between them, they may put up $50 million. Neither film made $10 million this weekend, and this was really the only chance either film had to find an audience. Leap Year has a slightly better chance to shrug this off, but probably not. Next week, The Book of Eli joins the fray. Can it knock of the King of the World? It would take a big, big weekend. Avatar still put up that massive Saturday, and something like that - even with a sub-$10 million Friday and Sunday - could keep Avatar over $30 million next weekend. I don't think Eli has a top end quite that high. So five wins in a row seems at the very least extremely possible. The Top Five:
1 - Avatar ($48.5 million)
2 - Sherlock Holmes ($16.7 million)
3 - Alvin and the Chipmunks ($16.3 million)
4 - Daybreakers ($14.5 million)
5 - It's Complicated ($11 million)

Comments

[Jeremy]

It must be exhausting having to find so many different stills from Avatar for the continuous updates about it steam rolling the box office.

[Get The Big Picture]

You know, it would be, but I rotate about five of them. It was easier with Dark Knight because, well, the characters didn't all look the same.

[Jeremy]

I think the next update should have a picture of Sigourney Weaver's Avatar...which looked frighteningly like Lisa Leslie.

[Get The Big Picture]

Frightening being the operative word. I'll work on that.

[John C.]

Wow this doesnt surprise me. Avatar was awesome! Have you heard about Avatar 2? Check this !@#$ out! http://www.kaycircle.com/index.php?q=What-is-the-avatar-2-release-date

[nick soapdish]

They all look the same? Racist.