When will Avatar unseat Titanic? (No Spoilers)

[mswas]

I think Avatar will unseat Titanic Domestically and Worldwide not this weekend but just after next weekend.

This thread is about ticket sales, please don’t spoil the film.

[Marley23]

Just to fill in the details, Avatar has made $1.68 billion worldwide through last weekend, and $509 million in the U.S. Titanic made $1.82 billion and about $601 million. That’s from BoxOfficeMojo.com.

Avatar made $54 million in the U.S. last week, so it might need two more weeks to get to the Titanic record, and $128.5 million everywhere else. So I’m guessing mswas it will get the worldwide record this weeked and it will definitely need another week, maybe two, for the U.S. record. But if you adjust things for inflation it’s probably a long way behind Titanic.

We’re finally seeing the damn thing on Sunday.

Requisite disclaimer: it sucks that box office results get this much attention, etc. etc.

[MovieMogul]

@Marley23

But if you adjust things for inflation it’s probably a long way behind Titanic.[/SIZE]

It’s still over $400M behind Titanic when you adjust for inflation. By the time it reaches the big boat’s unadjusted figure, it will be just short of the All-time Top 20, so I think it’s safe to say it’ll nudge through that threshold easily enough, but things take a pretty steep climb after #15 so that’s more of a mystery.

[Terminus_Est]

It’s going to get there with no help from China, which has semi-banned Avatar:

James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar” has proved wildly popular with Chinese cinemagoers. In just two weeks, it raked in $76 million in ticket sales, making it the most successful movie ever shown in the country. It appears the film will have a severely limited engagement, though. Chinese censors have slashed the number of theaters showing the film, reportedly over fears that its message could cause social unrest.

[Electronic_Chaos]

@mswas

This thread is about ticket sales, please don’t spoil the film.

The boat sinks.

If we’re talking about gross, and not adjusted for inflation, then I wouldn’t be too surprised if it was this weekend. It’s possible the Golden Globe awards made a few more people decide to see it, or see it again.

[mswas]

Inflation adjusted numbers are a horrible way of looking at it because they were built around films that were released multiple times and often before video came out. So it’s just as unfair to compare things to Gone With The Wind as it is to compare them to Star Wars. If Avatar is re-released several times like Star Wars and Gone With the Wind it would certainly be able to compete. Or if we started to measure DVD and On-Demand rentals then it would be comparable.

[JohnT]

I could have sworn that we already had a 400 post thread that pretty much covers this topic.

[Marley23]

You may be right about comparing Avatar to Star Wars or Gone with the Wind, mswas, but Titanic only came out in 1997. According to BoxOfficeMojo, the average price of a movie ticket price is up 60 percent since then, and that’s a huge difference.

Wikipedia has estimates for numbers of tickets sold, which is kind of interesting. It has Avatar ranked 34th among North American movies, between Love Story and Spider-Man.

[MovieMogul]

@mswas

Inflation adjusted numbers are a horrible way of looking at it because they were built around films that were released multiple times and often before video came out.

But since this is comparing Avatar with Titanic, your specific concerns don’t apply in this case.

[JohnT]

@Marley23

You may be right about comparing Avatar to Star Wars or Gone with the Wind, mswas, but Titanic only came out in 1997. According to BoxOfficeMojo, the average price of a movie ticket price is up 60 percent since then, and that’s a huge difference.

Wikipedia has estimates for numbers of tickets sold, which is kind of interesting. It has Avatar ranked 34th among North American movies, between Love Story and Spider-Man.

It’s a fine movie, but 83 million tickets sold for Fantasia? That makes my eye’s go :dubious:

[MovieMogul]

@Marley23

Wikipedia has estimates for numbers of tickets sold, which is kind of interesting. It has Avatar ranked 34th among North American movies, between Love Story and Spider-Man.

But I’d argue their estimate is totally off, since they’re using an average ticket price for Avatar as $7.30–a massive improbability given the premium pricing that is widespread for 3-D and/or IMAX.

[Equipoise]

@ArchiveGuy

But since this is comparing Avatar with Titanic, your specific concerns don’t apply in this case.

Even so, I think it’s worth noting that Avatar has made this tremendous amount of money in only 34 days. This article is about the MLK weekend so the figures are a few days old. Bolding mine.

…
Avatar hovered atop the box office for the fifth weekend in a row, the first time that’s happened since The Sixth Sense back in 1999, and it racked up several other milestones in the process. Its total stands at a monumental $504.9 million in 32 days, making it the fastest picture to cross the $500 million mark. The Dark Knight did it in 45 days, while Titanic took 98 days (or 50 days adjusted for ticket price inflation). With a $42.8 million Friday-to-Sunday take, Avatar not only had the smallest decline of the weekend (15 percent), but it broke the record for highest-grossing fifth weekend, formerly held by Titanic’s $30 million (though Titanic still retains the crown in terms of attendance).

At the foreign box office, Avatar continued to rage, blazing past the $1 billion mark in record time and delivering the biggest fifth week gross ever. From 111 markets, it generated $128.5 million, which was down 15 percent from last week, and its total climbed to $1.115 billion. That included a record-setting debut in its final market, Italy, where it made $15.2 million. China, though, was Avatar’s top market of the week at $17.9 million, and the movie is already the country’s highest grosser ever with $75.6 million in the till. Avatar also took that honor in South Korea with a $70.7 million tally. France remains Avatar’s biggest market overall with $115.3 million.

[MovieMogul]

@Equipoise

Even so, I think it’s worth noting that Avatar has made this tremendous amount of money in only 34 days. This article is about the MLK weekend so the figures are a few days old. Bolding mine.

And similarly, the premium (above-average) ticket price for virtually all shows plays a big part in this achievement.

[Red_Barchetta]

@ArchiveGuy

And similarly, the premium (above-average) ticket price for virtually all shows plays a big part in this achievement.

Doesn’t it say something though that people are willing to pay a premium–often multiple times–to see such a movie?

[GrandWino]

I was reading an old thread here about Inglourious Basterds (just caught it on DVD) and someone posted that they’d just seen the Avatar trailer before the showing of IB and thought it looked like it would completely bomb. Got a good chuckly out of that.

[MovieMogul]

@Red_Barchetta

Doesn’t it say something though that people are willing to pay a premium–often multiple times–to see such a movie?

Of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that its meteoric rise in box office receipts is due to more than just widespread popularity.

[garygnu]

@JohnT

It’s a fine movie, but 83 million tickets sold for Fantasia? That makes my eye’s go :dubious:

Fantasia was re-released over and over and over… seven times in theaters. There was the whole drug-trip bit for the 1969 release, which probably helped.

[jackdavinci]

@Terminus_Est

It’s going to get there with no help from China, which has semi-banned Avatar:

Well they are pulling the 2D version for which ticket sales are dropping but keeping 3D for which sales are still going strong.

I think number of tickets is a better barometer obviously than profit, given inflation, etc… although the fact that 3D tickets are more expensive than 2D ones might ought to be factored in somehow…

[Red_Barchetta]

*Ignore this

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

Well, today it’s only about $7 million behind Titanic in worldwide gross, but still about $48 million behind it in domestic US gross.

So I say it’ll take about another 2 or 3 days to become the biggest grossing flick of all time worldwide, but it may need a month or so to overtake the top spot in the US.